tihrary  of  Che  t:heolo0(cal  ^tminary 

PRINCETON  .  NEW  JERSEY 

FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 
ROBERT  ELLIOTT  SPEER 

iLlI?/whfem  Mitchell, 

1851-1939. 
The  church  in  the  Roman    i 
__    empire  bef9re  A.D.  170 


Mi^kn. 


HtiV/lu^U<^ 


/IDansfielt)   Colleae  Xectutes. 


THE    CHURCH 

IN 

THE    ROMAN    EMPIRE 

BEFORE  A.D.  170. 


MANSFIELD   COLLEGE   LECTURES,  1892 


»' 


iSiW*  OF 


^ 


J'JL    2  1959 


>«; 


.% 


THE    CHURCH  ^^6vat  stviv*^ 


iSJ>. 


THE    ROMAN    EMPIRE 

Before  a.d.  170 


W.     M.     RAMSAY,     M.  A., 

PROFESSOR     OF     HUMANITY     IN     THE     UNIVERSITY     OF     ABERDEEN; 

FORMERLY   PROFESSOR   OF   CLASSICAL  ARCH.EOLOGY,    AND 

FELLOW    OF    EXETER    COLLEGE,    OXFORD  ; 

AUTHOR     OF     "the    HISTORICAL    GEOGRAPHY    OF    ASIA    MINOR,"    ETC. 


WITH  MAPS  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS 


G.    P.    PUTNAM'S    SONS 


NEW  YORK 

27  WEST  TWKNTY-THIKD    STREET 


r.ONDON 

24  BEDFORD  STREET,  STRAND 

S^t  !)^nichtrbccKcr  ^rtss 


Copyright,  1893 
By  G.  p.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


A.  M.  R. 


PREFACE. 

THIS  work  originates  from  the  invitation  with  which 
the  Council  of  Mansfield  College,  Oxford,  honoured 
me  in  the  end  of  July  1891,  to  give  a  course  of  six  lectures 
there  in  May-June  1892.  The  opinion  of  Dr.  Fairbairn, 
Dr.  Sanday,  and  other  friends  encouraged  me  to  hope  that 
faults  of  execution — of  which  I  was  and  am  painfully  con- 
scious— did  not  wholly  obscure  a  good  idea  in  them  ;  and 
it  is  at  their  advice  that  the  present  book  appears.  The 
lectures  are  almost  entirely  rewritten  (except  Chap.  IX.), 
and  are  enlarged  by  the  addition  of  Part  I.  and  in  other 
respects,  which  need  not  be  specified  ;  but  they  retain  their 
original  character  as  lectures,  intended  rather  to  stimulate 
interest  and  research  in  students  than  to  attain  scientific 
completeness  and  order  of  exposition.  They  exemplify  to 
younger  students  the  method  of  applying  archaeological, 
topographical,  and  numismatic  evidence  to  the  investiga- 
tion of  early  Christian  history  ;  and,  as  I  always  urge 
on  my  pupils,  their  aim  is  to  suggest  to  others  how  to 
treat  the  subject  better  than   I  can. 


viii  Preface. 

The  books  of  the  New  Testament  are  treated  here  simply 
as  authorities  for  history  ;  and  their  credit  is  estimated  on 
the  same  principles  as  that  of  other  historical  documents. 
If  I  reach  conclusions  very  different  from  those  of  the 
school  of  criticism  whose  originators  and  chief  exponents 
are  German,  it  is  not  that  I  differ  from  their  method.  I 
fully  accept  their  principle,  that  the  sense  of  these  docu- 
ments can  be  ascertained  only  by  resolute  criticism  ;  but  I 
think  that  they  have  often  carried  out  their  principle  badly, 
and  that  their  criticism  often  offends  against  critical 
method.  True  criticism  must  be  sympathetic ;  but  in 
investigations  into  religion,  Greek,  Roman,  and  Christian 
alike,  there  appears  to  me,  if  I  may  venture  to  say  so,  to 
be  in  many  German  scholars  (the  greatest  excepted)  a  lack 
of  that  instinctive  sympathy  with  the  life  and  nature  of  a 
people  which  is  essential  to  the  right  use  of  critical  pro- 
cesses. For  years,  with  much  interest  and  zeal,  but  with 
little  knowledge,  I  followed  the  critics  and  accepted  their 
results.  In  recent  years,  as  I  came  to  understand  Roman 
history  better,  I  have  realised  that,  in  the  case  of  almost  all 
the  books  of  the  New  Testament,  it  is  as  gross  an  outrage 
on  criticism  to  hold  them  for  second-century  forgeries  as 
it  would  be  to  class  the  works  of  Horace  and  Virgil  as 
forgeries  of  the  time  of  Nero. 

Some  German  reviewers  have  taxed  me  with  unfair 
depreciation  of  German  authorities.     The  accusation  must 


Preface.  ix 

seem  to  my  English  friends  and  pupils  a  retribution  for 
the  persistence  with  which  I  have  urged  the  necessity  of 
studying  German  method.  None  admires  and  reverences 
German  scholarship  more  than  I  do  ;  but  it  has  not  taught 
me  to  be  blind  to  faults,  or  to  be  afraid  to  speak  out. 

I  cannot  sufficiently  acknowledge  my  debt  to  various 
friends,  chiefly  to  Dr.  Sanday ;  also  to  Dr.  Hort,  Dr. 
Fairbairn,  Mr.  Armitage  Robinson,  Mr.  A.  C.  Headlam, 
etc.  From  the  discriminating  criticism  of  Mr.  Vernon 
Bartlet  I  have  gained  much :  the  pages  on  i  Peter  were 
doubled  in  meeting  his  arguments.  My  old  friend  of 
undergraduate  days,  Mr.  Macdonell,  formerly  of  Balliol 
College,  gave  me  especially  great  help  throughout  the  first 
fourteen  chapters.  In  the  index  I  have  been  aided  by  my 
pupil,  Mr.  A.  Souter,  now  of  Caius  College. 

A  special  tribute  is  due  to  two  writers.  Lightfoot's 
Ignatius  and  Polycarp  has  been  my  constant  companion  ; 
yet  my  admiration  for  his  historical  perception,  his 
breadth  of  knowledge  and  his  honesty  of  statement,  and 
my  grateful  recollection  of  much  kindly  encouragement 
received  from  him  personally,  do  not  prevent  me  from 
stating  frankly  where  I  am  bound  to  differ  from  him. 
Mommsen's  review  of  Neumann  explained  certain  diffi- 
culties that  long  puzzled  me ;  and  the  lectures  attempt, 
however  imperfectly,  to  apply  principles  learned  mainly 
from  his  various  writings. 


X  Preface. 

Of  many  shortcomings  I  regret  most  the  following. 
An  account  of  the  organisations  permitted  by  the  Empire, 
especially  the  Augustales,  would  illustrate  by  contrast  the 
position  of  the  Church.  The  evidence  of  Hermas  was 
omitted  from  ch.  xiii.,  because  I  had  to  put  him  before 
A.D.  112,  and  this  date  would  not  be  generally  considered 
to  strengthen  my  argument.  The  discussion  of  Codex 
BezcB  should  have  been  concentrated  in  one  chapter,  and 
carried  out  to  illustrate,  by  comparison  with  Acta  Theklce, 
the  character  of  the  Church  in  Asia  about  130  A.D.  In 
palliation  of  many  faults  I  may  plead  the  want  of  a  good 
library  and  the  pressure  of  other  duties. 

As  the  whole  work  is  due  to  my  explorations  in  Asia 
Minor,  I  hope  it  may  stimulate  the  progress  of  discovery 
in  that  land,  which  at  present  conceals  within  it  the  answer 
to  many  pressing  problems  of  history ;  and,  perhaps,  may 
even  prevent  my  researches  from  coming  to  an  end. 
Next  to  further  exploration  and  excavation,  the  greatest 
desideratum  is  a  society  to  study  and  edit  the  acta  of  the 
Eastern  Saints. 


Aberdeen, 

Januaryz^rd,  1893. 


CONTENTS. 

PART   I.— EARLIEST   STAGE: 
ST.     PAUL     IN    ASIA     MINOR, 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

GENERAL     ,, •  •  '  3 

1.  Plan  of  the  work  3  :  2.  The  Travel-Document  6  :  3.  The  Churches 
of  Galatia  8:  4.  Social  Condition  of  Asia  Minor,  A.D.  50-60,  11: 
Note  13.    " 


CHAPTER  II. 

LOCALITIES   OF  THE  FIRST  JOURNEY         .....         16 

1.  Pamphylia  16  :  2.  Pisidia  and  Ayo  Paulo  18  :  3.  Pisidian  Antioch 
25  :  4.  Route  from  Antioch  to  Iconium  27  :  6.  Iconium  36  :  6.  Lystra 
47 :  7,  Derbe  54  :  8.  Character  of  Lycaonia  in  the  First  Century  56. 

CHAPTER    III. 
THE   FIRST  JOURNEY  AS  A  NARRATIVE   OF  TRAVEL         .  .        59 

CHAPTER    IV. 
THE  SECOND  JOURNEY 74 


xli  Contents. 


CHAPTER  V. 

PACK 

THE  THIRD  JOURNEY 90 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE   EPISTLE  TO  THE   GALATTANS 97 

1.  Arguments  founded  on  the  Epistle  97 :  2.  St.  Paul's  feelings 
towards  the  Galatian  Churches  :  3.  Arguments  for  the  North-Gaiatian 
theory  105  :  4.  Analogy  of  i  Peter  no :  5.  Change  in  the  meaning  of 
the  name  Galatia  iii. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

ST.   PAUL  AT  EPHESUS 1x2 

1.  Demetrius  the  Neopoios  113  :  2.  Acts  xix.  23-41,  114  :  3.  Demetrius 
the  Neopoios  and  Demetrius  the  Silversmith  118  :  4.  Action  of  the 
Priests  of  Artemis  120  :  5.  Shrines  of  Artemis  123  :  6.  Attitude  of  the 
Ephesian  officials  towards  Paul  129  :  7.  Fate  of  the  silver  shrines  134  : 
8.  Great  Artemis  135  :  9.  Text  of  Acts  xix.  23-41,  139  :  10.  Historical 
character  of  the  narrative  Acts  xix.  23-41,  143. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE     ORIGINAL    AUTHORITY     FOR    ST.     PAUL'S    JOURNEYS  : 

VALUE  AND   TEXT I46 

1.  Rapid  spread  of  Christianity  in  Asia  Minor  147  :  2.  Distinction  of 
Authorship  148  :  3.  Text  of  Codex  BezcB  :  Asia  Minor  151  :  4.  Text 
of  Codex  BezcB :  Europe  156  :  5.  Codex  BezcB  founded  on  a  Catholic 
Recension  161 :  6.  Postscript :  Spitta's  Apostelgeschichte  166. 


Contents.  xiii 

PART   II.— A.D.  64—170: 

.    BEING    LECTURES   A I    MANSFIELD    COLLEGE, 
OXFORD,    MAY  AND    JUNE,    1892. 

CHAPTER   IX. 

PAGE 

SUBJECT  AND   METHOD       .  .  .  ,  ,  .  .  •      I7I 

1.  Aspect  of  history  here  treated  172 :  2.  Connexion  between  Church 
history  and  the  life  of  the  period  173  :  3.  The  authorities  :  date  177  : 
4.  The  authorities  :  trustworthiness  182  :  6.  Results  of  separating 
Church  history  from  Imperial  history  185  :  6.  The  point  of  view  190. 

CHAPTER   X. 

PLINY'S  REPORT  AND  TRAJAN'S  RESCRIPT       .  .  .  .      I96 

1.  Preliminary  considerations  196 :  2.  The  religious  question  in 
Bithynia-Pontus  198  :  3.  First  and  second  stage  of  the  trials  201  : 
4.  Pliny's  attitude  towards  the  Christians  205  :  5.  The  case  was 
administrative,  not  legal  207  :  6.  Pliny's  questions  and  Trajan's  reply 
211:  7.  The  Christians  were  not  punished  as  a  Sodalilas  213:  8. 
Procedure  215  :  9.  Additional  Details  219  :  10.  Recapitulation  222 : 
11.  Topography. 

CHAPTER   XI. 

THE  ACTION  OF  NERO  TOWARDS  THE   CHRISTIANS  ,  .      226 

1.  Tacitus  Annals  xv.  44,  227  :  2,  The  evidence  of  Suetonius  229  : 
3.  First  stage  in  Nero's  action  232  :  4.  Second  stage  :  charge  of  hostility 
to  society  234  :  6.  Crime  which  the  Christians  confessed  238  :  6. 
Character,  duration,  and  extent  of  the  Neronian  persecution  240  :  7. 
Principle  of  Nero's  action  242  :  8.  Evidence  of  Christian  documents  245. 


xiv  Contents, 


CHAPTER   XII. 

THE  FLAVIAN  POLICY  TOWARDS   THE  CHURCH        ,  ,  ,     252 

1.  Tacitus'  conception  of  the  Flavian  policy  253  :  2.  Confirmation 
of  Nero's  policy  by  Vespasian  256 ;  3.  The  Persecution  of  Domitian 
259 :  4.  Bias  of  Dion  Cassius  263 :  6.  Difference  of  policy  towards 
Jews  and  Christians  264  :  6.  The  executions  of  a.d.  95  an  incident 
of  the  general  policy  268  :  7.  The  evidence  of  Suetonius  about  the 
executions  of  A.D.  95,  271  :  8.  The  Flavian  action  was  poUtical  in 
character  274. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

CHRISTIAN  AUTHORITIES   FOR  THE   FLAVIAN  PERIOD     .  .      279 

1.  The  first  Epistle  of  Peter  279  :  2.  Later  Date  assigned  to  i  Peter 
288  :  3.  Official  action  implied  in  i  Peter  290 :  4.  The  evidence  of 
the  Apocalypse  295  :  5.  The  first  Epistle  of  John  302  :  6.  Hebrews 
and  Barnabas  306 :  7.  The  Epistle  of  Clement  309  :  8.  The  letters  of 
Ignatius  311. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  POLICY  OF   HADRIAN,   PIUS,   AND   MARCUS        .  .  .     32O 

1.  Hadrian  320  ;    2.  Pius  331 :   3.  Marcus  Aurelius  334 :    4.  The 


Apologists  340. 


CHAPTER  XV. 


CAUSE  AND  EXTENT  OF  PERSECUTION 346 

1.  Popular  hatred   al  the   Christians   346 :  2.  Real  cause  of  State 
persecution  354 :  3.  Organisation  of  the  Church  361 :  Note  374. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

THE  ACTA   OF  PAUL  AND   THEKLA  ...,;.     375 

1.  The  Acta  in  their  extant  form  375  :  2.  Queen  Tryphaena  382 : 
3.  Localities  of  the  tale  of  Thekla  390  :  4.  The  trials  at  Iconium  391  : 
5.  The  trial  of  Thekla  at  Antioch  395  :  6.  Punishment  and  escape  of 
Thekla  401  :  7.  The  original  tale  of  Thekla  409  :  8.  Revision  of  the 
tale  of  Thekla,  A.D.  130-50, 416  :  9.  The  Iconian  legend  of  Thekla  423 : 
Notes  426. 


Contents.  xv 

CHAPTER   XVII. 

THE  CHURCH   FROM    120  TO    17O  A.D 429 

NOTES  .••...          ..•••  442 

CHAPTER   XVIII. 

GLYCERIUS  THE  DEACON 443 

CHAPTER   XIX. 

THE   MIRACLE  AT  KHONAI 465 

NOTES 480 

INDEX 481 

NOTES  ON  ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  MAPS 494 


VIEW  OF  THE  SITE  OF  LYSTRA  .  ,  ,  .      facing^.  47 

VIEW  OF  THE  SITE  OF  DERBE  .  ,  ,      facing  p.  55 

EARLY  CHRISTIAN  MONUMENT  FROM  PRYMNESSOS    facing^.  44I 

MAP  OF  ASIA  MINOR  ABOUT  A.D.  50-70   .        •       in  ;pocket  at  end 

MAP  OF  THE  LYCUS  VALLEY facing -p.  ^"JZ 


THE  CHURCH  IN  THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE. 

PART   I. — EARLIEST   STAGE  : 
ST.    PAUL    IN  ASIA    MINOR, 


CHAPTER   I. 

GENERAL. 

I.  Plan  of  the  Work. 

IN  view  of  the  important  part  played  by  the  churches 
of  Asia  in  the  development  of  Christianity  during 
the  period  70-170  A.D.,*  the  proper  preliminary  to  the 
subject  which  is  treated  in  this  book  would  be  a  study 
of  the  social  and  political  condition  of  Asia  Minor  about 
the  middle  of  the  first  century  of  our  era.  Such  a  task  is 
too  great  for  the  narrow  limits  of  present  knowledge.  In 
place  of  such  a  preliminary  study,  it  appeared  a  more 
prudent  course  to  describe  the  travels  of  St.  Paul  in  the 
country,  as  affording  a  series  of  pictures  of  single  scenes, 
each  simple  and  slight  in  character,  and  each  showing  some 
special  feature  of  the  general  life  of  society. f 

But  while  chronological  considerations  require  that  these 
chapters  be  placed  as  a  preliminary  part,  they  are,  alike 
in  conception  and  in  execution,  later  than  the  body  of  the 
book.  The  writer,  while  composing  the  opening  chapters, 
had  the  rest  of  the  work  already  clear  in  his  mind ;  and  there 
has  been  unconsciously  a  tendency  to  write  as  if  the  views 

•  See  below,  p.  171. 

t  Perhaps  at  some  later  date,  when  the  investigations,  studies,  and 
travel  necessary  for  a  projected  historical  work  are  completed,  it 
may  be  possible  to  paint  a  general  picture  of  the  state  of  society  in 
the  first  century. 

s 


S/.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor 


stated  in  the  main  body  of  the  work  were  familiar  to  the 
reader.  In  the  preliminary  part  it  is  important  to  observe 
any  faint  signs  of  the  later  idea  that  Christianity  was  the 
religion  of  the  Empire.  We  trace  the  rise  of  this  idea 
from  the  time  when  Paul  went  from  Perga  into  the  province 
Galatia  "  to  the  work  "  (Acts  xiii.  14,  xv.  38.) 

The  discussion  which  is  here  given  of  the  missionary 
journeys  of  St.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor  is  not  intended  to  be 
complete.  It  is  unnecessary  to  repeat  what  has  already 
been  well  stated  by  others.  The  writer  presupposes 
throughout  the  discussion  a  general  familiarity  with  the 
previous  descriptions  of  the  journeys.  His  intention  has 
been  to  avoid  saying  again  what  has  been  rightly  said  in 
the  works  of  Conybeare  and  Howson,  of  Lewin,  of  Farrar, 
etc.  ;  and  merely  to  bring  together  the  ideas  which  have 
been  suggested  to  him  by  long  familiarity  with  the  locali- 
ties, and  which  seemed  to  correct,  or  to  advance  beyond, 
the  views  stated  in  the  modern  biographies  of  St.  Paul,  and 
in  the  Commentaries  on  the  Acts  and  the  Epistles.* 

The  notes  which  follow  may  perhaps  seem  to  be  unneces- 
sarily minute  ;  but  the  reason  for  their  existence  lies  in  the 
fact  that  it  is  important  to  weigh  accurately  and  minutely 
minute  details.  Fidelity  to  the  character  and  circumstances 
of  the  country  and  people  is  an  important  criterion  in 
estimating  the  narrative  of  St.  Paul's  journeys  ;  and  such 
fidelity  is  most  apparent  in  slight  details,  many  of  which 
have,  so  far  as  I  can  discover,  hitherto  escaped  notice.  The 
writer's  subject  is  restricted  to  the  country  with  which  he 
has  had  the  opportunity  of  acquiring  unusual  familiarity, 


*  Considerable  parts  of  Chapters   I.,  II.,  III.  appeared  in  the 
Expositor,  January,  September,  October,  and  November,  1892. 


/.    General.  5 

and  about  which  many  false  opinions  have  become  part  of 
the  stock  of  knowledge  handed  down  through  a  succession 
of  commentators.  Even  that  most  accurate  of  writers,  the 
late  Bishop  Lightfoot,  had  not  in  his  earlier  works  suc- 
ceeded in  emancipating  himself  from  the  traditional  miscon- 
ceptions ;  we  observe  in  his  successive  writings  a  continuous 
progress  towards  the  accurate  knowledge  of  Asia  Minor 
which  is  conspicuous  in  his  work  on  Ignatius  and  Polycarp. 
But  in  his  early  work,  the  edition  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians,  there  is  shown,  so  far  as  Asia  Minor  is  concerned, 
little  or  no  superiority  to  the  settled  erroneousness  of  view 
and  of  statement  which  still  characterises  the  recent  com- 
mentaries of  Wendt  and  Lipsius  ;  *  and  only  a  few  signs 
appear  of  his  later  fixed  habit  of  recurring  to  original 
authorities  about  the  country,  and  setting  the  words  of  St. 
Paul  in  their  local  and  historical  surroundings,  a  habit 
which  contrasts  strongly  with  the  satisfied  acquiescence  of 
Lipsius  and  Wendt  in  the  hereditary  circle  of  knowledge 
or  error.  The  present  writer  is  under  great  obligations  to 
both  of  them,  and  desires  to  acknowledge  his  debt  fully ; 
but  the  vice  of  many  modern  German  discussions  of 
the  early  history  of  Christianity — viz.,  falseness  to  the  facts 


*  Wendt's  sixth  (seventh)  edition  of  Meyer's  Handbuch  iiber  die 
Apostelgeschichte,  Gottingen,  1888  ;  Lipsius'  edition  of  Epistle  to 
the  Galatians  in  Holtzmann's  Handcommentar  zum  N.T.,  ii.  2, 
Freiburg,  1891.  These  works  are  referred  to  throughout  the  eight 
opening  chapters  simply  as  Wendt  and  Lipsius.  I  am  sorry  to 
speak  unfavourably  of  Lipsius  so  soon  after  his  lamented  death  ;  but 
my  criticism  refers  only  to  his  statements  about  the  antiquities  of 
Asia  Minor.  The  obscurity  of  this  subject  does  not  justify  wrong 
statements,  and  inferences  founded  on  them.  Harnack's  excellent 
edition  of  Acta  Carpi  shows  how  a  judicious  reticence  may  be 
observed  in  cases  where  certainty  is  unattainable. 


SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 


of  contemporary  life  and  the  general  history  of  the  period — 
is  becoming  stereotyped  and  intensified  by  long  repetition 
in  the  most  recent  commentators,  and  some  criticism  and 
protest  against  their  treatment  of  the  subject  are  required.* 
I  regret  to  be  compelled  in  these  earlier  chapters  to 
disagree  so  much  with  Lightfoot's  views  as  stated  in  his 
edition  of  Galatians :  perhaps  therefore  I  may  be  allowed 
to  say  that  the  study  of  that  work,  sixteen  years  ago, 
marks  an  epoch  in  my  thoughts  and  the  beginning  of  my 
admiration  for  St.  Paul  and  for  him.f 

2.  The  "  Travel-Document." 

In  order  to  put  the  reader  on  his  guard,  it  is  only  fair  to 
state  at  the  outset  that  the  writer  has  a  definite  aim — viz.,  by 
minutely  examining  the  journeys  in  Asia  Minor  to  show 
that  the  account  given  in  Acts  of  St.  Paul's  journeys  is 
founded  on,  or  perhaps  actually  incorporates,  an  account 
written  down  under  the  immediate  influence  of  Paul  him- 


*  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  my  criticism  is  directed 
against  one  single  aspect  of  modem  German  work  in  early  Christian 
history.  Of  the  value,  suggestiveness,  and  originality  of  that  work 
no  one  can  have  a  higher  opinion  than  I  ;  but  I  cannot  agree  with 
certain  widely  accepted  views  as  to  the  relation  of  the  early  Christians 
to  the  society  and  the  government  of  Asia  Minor  and  of  the  Empire 
generally. 

t  The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  formed  part  of  the  Pass  Divinity 
Examination  in  the  Final  Schools  at  Oxford.  It  is  only  fair  to 
acknowledge  how  much  I  gained  from  an  examination  which  I  sub- 
mitted to  with  great  reluctance.  Immersed  as  I  was  at  the  time  in 
Greek  Philosophy,  it  appeared  to  me  that  Paul  was  the  first  true 
successor  of  Aristotle,  and  his  work  a  great  relief  after  the  unen- 
durable dreariness  of  the  Greek  Stoics  and  the  dulness  of  the 
Epicureans. 


/.    General.  7 

self.  This  original  account  was  characterised  by  a  system 
of  nomenclature  different  from  that  which  is  employed  by 
the  author  of  some  of  the  earlier  chapters  of  Acts  :  it  used 
territorial  names  in  the  Roman  sense,  like  Paul's  Epistles, 
whereas  the  author  of  chap,  ii.,  ver.  9,  uses  them  in  the 
popular  Greek  sense ;  and  it  showed  a  degree  of  accuracy 
which  the  latter  was  not  able  to  attain.*  In  carrying  out 
this  aim,  it  will  be  necessary  to  differ  in  some  passages  of 
Acts  from  the  usual  interpretation,  and  the  reasons  for  this 
divergence  can  be  appreciated  only  by  careful  attention  to 
rather  minute  details.  For  the  sake  of  brevity,  I  shall,  so 
far  as  regard  for  clearness  permits,  venture  to  refer  for  some 
details  to  a  larger  work,t  whose  results  are  here  applied  to 
the  special  purpose  of  illustrating  this  part  of  the  Acts  ; 
but  I  hope  to  make  the  exposition  and  arguments  complete 
in  themselves. 

As  this  idea,  that  the  narrative  of  St.  Paul's  journeys, 
or  at  least  parts  of  it,  had  an  independent  existence 
before  it  was  utilised  or  incorporated  in  Acts,  must  be 
frequently  referred  to  in  the  following  pages,  the  supposed 
original  document  will  be  alluded  to  as  the  "  Travel  Docu- 
ment." The  exact  relation  of  this  document  to  the  form 
which  appears  in  Acts  is  difficult  to  determine.  It  may 
have  been  modified  or  enlarged  ;  but  I  cannot  enter  on 
this  subject.     My  aim  is  only  to  investigate  the  traces  of 


•  The  general  agreement  of  this  view  with  that  stated  by  Wendt, 
pp.  23  and  278,  is  obvious  ;  and  certain  differences  also  are  not 
difficult  to  detect.  He  dates  the  composition  of  Acts  between  75 
and  100  A. D.,  and  holds  that  the  original  document  alone  was  the 
work  of  Luke. 

t  Historical  Geography  of  Asia  Minor,  where  I  have  discussed 
the  points  more  fully. 


8  St.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

minute  fidelity  to  the  actual  facts  of  contemporary  society 
and  life,  which  stamp  this  part  of  Acts  as,  in  part  or  in 
whole,  a    trustworthy   historical    authority,   dating    from 

62-4  A.D. 

I  hope  to  show  that,  when  once  we  place  ourselves  at  the 
proper  point  of  view,  the  interpretation  of  the  "  Travel- 
Document  "  as  a  simple,  straightforward,  historical  testimony 
offers  itself  with  perfect  ease,  and  that  it  confirms  and 
completes  our  knowledge  of  the  country  acquired  from 
other  sources  in  a  way  which  proves  its  ultimate  origin 
from  a  person  acquainted  with  the  actual  circumstances. 
If  this  attempt  be  successful,  it  follows  that  the  original 
document  was  composed  under  St.  Paul's  own  influence,* 
for  only  he  was  present  on  all  the  occasions  which  are 
described  with  conspicuous  vividness. 

3.  The  Churches  of  Galatia. 

For  a  long  time  I  failed  to  appreciate  the  accuracy  of 
the  narrative  in  Acts.f  It  has  cost  me  much  time, 
thought,  and  labour  to  understand  it ;  %  and  it  was  im- 
possible to  understand  it  so  long  as  I  was  prepossessed  with 
the  idea  adopted  from  my  chiei  master  and  guide,  Bishop 

*  I  wish  to  express  his  influence  in  the  most  general  terms,  and  to 
avoid  any  theorising  about  the  way  in  which  it  was  exercised, 
whether  by  mere  verbal  report  or  otherwise. 

t  My  earlier  views  were  expressed  in  the  Expositor,  January 
1892,  p.  30.  Compare  also  the  paragraph  which  I  wrote  in  Ex- 
positor, July  1890,  p.  20. 

\  Among  other  things  I  have  been  obliged  to  rewrite  the  sketch 
of  the  history  of  Lycaonia  and  Cilicia  Tracheia  in  Hist.  Geogr., 
p.  371,  where  I  wrongly  followed  M.  Waddington  against  Professor 
Mommsen  in  regard  to  the  coins  of  M.  Antonius  Polemo.  This  error 
vitiated  my  whole  theory. 


/.     General.  9 

Lightfoot,  that  in  St.  Paul's  Epistle  the  term  Galatians 
denotes  the  Celtic  people  of  the  district  popularly  and 
generally  known  as  Galatia.  To  maintain  this  idea  I  had 
to  reject  the  plain  and  natural  interpretation  of  some 
passages  ;  but  when  at  last  I  found  myself  compelled  to 
abandon  it,  and  to  understand  Galatians  as  inhabitants  of 
Roman  Galatia,  much  that  had  been  dark  became  clear, 
and  some  things  that  had  seemed  loose  and  vague  became 
precise  and  definite.  As  the  two  opposing  theories  must 
frequently  be  referred  to,  it  will  prove  convenient  to 
designate  them  as  the  North-Galatian  and  the  South- 
Galatian  theories  ;  and  the  term  North  Galatia  will  be  used 
to  denote  the  country  of  the  Asiatic  Gauls,  South  Galatia 
to  denote  the  parts  of  Phrygia,  Lycaonia,  and  Pisidia,  which 
were  by  the  Romans  incorporated  in  the  vast  province  of 
Galatia.* 

The  question  as  to  what  churches  were  addressed  by 
St.  Paul  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  is  really  of  the  first 
importance  for  the  right  understanding  of  the  growth  of 
the  Christian  Church  during  the  period  between  70  and 
1 50  A.  D. ;  and  the  prevalent  view,  against  which  we  argue, 
leads  necessarily  to  a  misapprehension  of  the  position  of 
the  Church  in  the  Empire.  The  diffusion  of  Christianity 
was,  as  I  hope  to  bring  out  more  clearly  in  the  following 
pages,  closely  connected  with  the  great  lines  of  communica- 
tion across  the  Roman  Empire,  with  the  maintenance  of 
intercourse,  and    with  the  development  of  education  and 

*  I  did  not  expect  to  be  obliged  to  argue  that  this  great  province 
was  called  Galatia ;  but  even  this  simple  fact,  which  had  been 
assumed  by  every  writer  since  Tacitus,  has  recently  been  contested 
by  Dr.  Schurer,  and  I  have  appended  a  note  on  the  subject  at  the 
end  of  this  chapter. 


lo  S/.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

the  feeling  of  unity  throughout  the  Empire.  The  spread 
of  Christianity  had  a  political  side.  The  Church  may  be, 
roughly  speaking,  described  as  a  political  party  advocating 
certain  ideas  which,  in  their  growth,  would  have  resulted 
necessarily  in  social  and  political  reform.*  All  that  fostered 
the  idea  of  universal  citizenship  and  a  wider  Roman  policy 
— as  distinguished  from  the  narrow  Roman  view  that 
looked  on  Rome,  or  even  on  Italy,  as  mistress  of  a  subject 
empire,  instead  of  head  and  capital  of  a  co-ordinate  empire 
— made  for  Christianity  unconsciously  and  insensibly  ;  and 
the  Christian  religion  alone  was  able  to  develop  fully  this 
idea  and  policy. 

The  chief  line  along  which  the  new  religion  developed 
was  that  which  led  from  Syrian  Antioch  through  the 
Cilician  Gates,  across  Lycaonia  to  Ephesus,  Corinth,  and 
Rome.f  One  subsidiary  line  followed  the  land  route  by 
Philadelphia,  Troas,  Philippi,  and  the  Egnatian  Way  J  to 
Brindisi  and  Rome  ;  and  another  went  north  from  the 
Gates  by  Tyana  and  Caesareia  of  Cappadocia  to  Amisos  in 
Pontus,  §  the  great  harbour  of  the  Black  Sea,  by  which  the 
trade  of  Central  Asia  was  carried  to  Rome.     The  main- 


*  In  the  writer's  opinion  the  Church  proved  unfaithful  to  its  trust, 
ceased  to  adhere  to  the  principles  with  which  it  started,  and  failed, 
in  consequence,  to  carry  out  the  reform,  or  rather  revolution,  which 
would  have  naturally  resulted  from  them.  But  that  chapter  of 
history  is  later  than  the  scope  of  the  present  volume. 

t  This  line  is  referred  to  in  several  passages  which  have  never 
yet  been  properly  understood,  e. g.,  Ignatius,  Ephes.,  §  12,  Clement 
E^.  i.,  ad  Corinth.,  §  i. 

X  Cp.  Rom.  XV.  19.     This  route  was  taken  by  Ignatius'  guards. 

§  The  early  foundation  of  churches  in  Cappadocia  (i  Peter  i.  i) 
and  in  Pontus  (i  Peter  i.  i  ;  Pliny  ad  Traj.,  96)  was  due  to  this 
line  of  communication. 


/.     General.  1 1 

tenance  of  close  and  constant  communication  between  the 
scattered  congregations  must  be  presupposed,  as  necessary 
to  explain  the  growth  of  the  Church  and  the  attitude 
which  the  State  assumed  towards  it.  Such  communication 
was,  on  the  view  advocated  in  the  present  work,  maintained 
along  the  same  lines  on  which  the  general  development  of 
the  Empire  took  place ;  and  politics,  education,  religion, 
grew  side  by  side.  But  the  prevalent  view  as  to  the 
Galatian  churches  separates  the  line  of  religious  growth 
from  the  line  of  the  general  development  of  the  Empire,  and 
introduces  into  a  history  that  claims  to  belong  to  the  first 
century,  the  circumstances  that  characterised  a  much  later 
period.  The  necessary  inference  from  the  prevalent  view 
is,  either  that  this  history  really  belongs  to  a  much  later 
period  than  it  claims  to  belong  to  (an  inference  drawn  with 
strict  and  logical  consistency  by  a  considerable  body  of 
German  scholars),  or  that  the  connexion  between  the 
religious  and  the  general  history  of  the  Empire  must  be 
abandoned.  If  the  arguments  for  the  prevalent  view  are 
conclusive,  we  must  accept  the  choice  thus  offered  ;  but  I 
hope  to  show  that  the  prevalent  view  is  not  in  accordance 
with  the  evidence. 

4.  Social  Condition  of  Asia  Minor,  a.d.  50-60. 

The  discussion  of  St.  Paul's  experiences  in  Asia  Minor 
is  beset  with  one  serious  difficulty.  The  attempt  must  be 
made  to  indicate  the  character  of  the  society  into  which 
the  Apostle  introduced  the  new  doctrine  of  religion  and 
of  life.  In  the  case  of  Greece  and  Rome  much  may  be 
assumed  as  familiar  to  the  reader.  In  the  case  of  Asia 
Minor  very  little  can  be  safely  assumed  ;  and  the  analogy 


12  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

of  Greece  and  Rome  is  apt  to   introduce  confusion  and 
misconception.     Conybeare  and   Howson  have  attempted, 
in   a   most  scholarly  way,  to   set  forth   a  picture  of  the 
situation   in  which  St.   Paul  found  himself  placed  in  the 
cities  of  Asia  and  of  Galatia.     But  the  necessary  materials 
for   their    purpose   did    not   exist,   the   country   was    un- 
known, the  maps  were  either  a  blank  or  positively  wrong 
in  regard  to  all  but   a  very  few  points  ;  and,  moreover, 
they  were  often  deceived  by  Greek  and  Roman  analogies. 
The  only  existing  sketch  of  the  country  that  is  not  posi- 
tively misleading  is  given  by  Mommsen  in  his  Provinces 
of  the   Roman   Empire ;    and   that   is   only   a   very   brief 
description,  which  extends  over  a  period  of  several  cen- 
turies.    Now  the  dislike  entertained  for  the  new  religion 
was  at  first  founded  on  the  disturbance  it  caused  in  the 
existing  relations  of  society.     Toleration  of  new  religions 
as  such  was  far  greater  under  the  Roman  Empire  than  it 
has  been  in  modern  times  :  in  the  multiplicity  of  religions 
and  gods  that  existed  in  the  same  city,  a  single  new  addi- 
tion was  a  matter  of  almost  perfect  indifference.     But  the 
aggressiveness  of  Christianity,  the  change  in  social  habits 
and  every-day  life  which  it  introduced,  and  the  injurious 
effect  that  it  sometimes  exercised  on  trades  which  were 
encouraged   by  paganism,  combined  with  the  intolerance 
that  it  showed  for  other  religions,  made  it  detested  among 
people  who  regarded  with  equanimity,  or  even  welcomed, 
the  introduction  into  their  cities  of  the  gods  of  Greece,  of 
Rome,  of  Egypt,  of  Syria.     Hence  every  slight  fact  which 
is  recorded  of  St  Paul's  experiences  has  a  close  relation  to 
the  social  system  that  prevailed  in  the  country,  and  cannot 
be  properly  understood  without  some  idea  of  the  general 
character  of  society  and  the  tendencies  which  moulded  it 


/.    General.  13 

The  attempt  must  be  made  in  the  following  pages  to  bring 
out  the  general  principles  which  were  at  work  in  each  indi- 
vidual incident ;  and  such  an  attempt  involves  minuteness 
in  scrutinising  the  details  of  each  incident  and  lengthens 
the  exposition.  It  will  be  necessary  to  express  dissent 
from  predecessors  oftener  than  I  could  wish  ;  but  if  one " 
does  not  formally  dissent  from  the  views  advocated  by 
others,  the  impression  is  apt  to  be  caused  that  they  have 
not  been  duly  weighed. 

Note  on  the  Name  of  the  Province  Galatia. 

It  is  not  easy  to  find  a  more  absolute  contradiction  than  there  is 
between  the  view  adopted  in  the  text  and  that  of  Dr.  E.  Schurer  in 
Theologische  Literaturzeitung,  1892,  p.  468:  "An  official  usage, 
which  embraced  all  three  districts  (Galatia,  Pisidia,  and  Lycaonia) 
under  the  single  conception  Galatia,  has  never  existed."  This 
extraordinary  statement  is  made  with  equal  positiveness  by  Dr. 
Schurer  in  Jahrbiicher  fiir  ^rotestantische  Theologie,  1892,  p.  471, 
where  he  affirms  that  "the  name  Galatia  is  only  a  ;parte ;potiori, 
being  taken  from  the  biggest  of  the  various  districts  which  were 
included  in  the  provinces,  and  is  not  an  official  designation:  the 
name  and  the  conception  Galatia  did  not  embrace  more  than  the 
special  district  of  this  name."  When  I  read  such  a  statement  I  fall 
into  despair.*  I  have  stated  the  facts  with  some  care  in  my  Histor. 
Geogr.,  pp.  253  and  453;  and  Dr.  Schurer  devotes  considerable  space 
to  restating  them  in  a  less  complete,  and,  as  I  venture  to  think,  less 
accurate  way,  treating  a  small  selection  of  inscriptions  as  if  they 
represented  the  official  usage,  while  the  overwhelming  majority  of 
passages,  which  describe  the  entire  province  by  the  name  Galatia, 
are  entirely  disregarded  by  him.  Dr.  Schurer  twice  refers  to  my 
work  at  the  end  of  footnotes,  but  does  not  think  it  worthy  of  a  place 
in  his  list  of  recent  authorities.  The  history  which  I  have  given  in  it 
of  the  development  of  the  province  Galatia  is  inconsistent  with  his 


•  Some  of  my  German  critics  consider  that  I  have  spoken  too 
strongly  in  my  Histor.  Geogr.  regarding  the  erroneous  ideas  about 
the  country  held  by  some  German  scholars. 


14  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

view,  and  I  see  no  reason  to  alter  what  I  have  said  on  any  important 
point :  a  Roman  province  must  have  had  a  name,  and  the  name  of 
the  province  in  question  was  Galatia.  I  shall  not  spend  time  in 
arguing  the  point,  but  shall  lay  down  the  following  series  of  propo- 
sitions, which  I  believe  to  be  correct  and  founded  on  the  ancient 
authorities  : — 

1.  The  province  in  question  was,  in  its  origin,  the  kingdom  left  by 
Amyntas  at  his  death  in  B.C.  25. 

2.  Amyntas  was,  in  the  estimation  of  the  Romans,  primarily  and 
characteristically,  king  of  Galatia.  Galatia  proper  was  the  nucleus 
and  the  mainstay  of  his  kingdom. 

3.  The  first  governor  appointed  is  called  "  Governor  of  Galatia." 

4.  Inscriptions  found  in  the  extreme  parts  of  Galatic  Pisidia  and 
Galatic  Lycaonia  mention  the  governor  of  the  district  as  governor 
of  Galatia.  A  striking  case  is  the  following  : — A  Latin  official 
document  of  the  most  formal  t)^e,  recording  a  demarcation  of 
boundaries  in  the  western  part  of  Galatic  Pisidia,  and  dating  in 
A.D.  54,  or  immediately  after,  defines  the  Roman  officer  who  carried 
out  the  delimitation  as  procurator,  and  an  inscription  of  Iconium 
describes  the  same  person  as  procurator  of  the  Galatic  province 
(C.I.G.,  3991).* 

5.  Honorary  inscriptions,  in  which  it  is  an  object  to  accumulate 
titles,  speak  of  the  official  as  governor  of  Galatia,  Pontus,  Paph- 
lagonia,  Pisidia,  Phrygia,  Lycaonia,  etc. ;  but  we  possess  the  actual 
text  of  the  inscription  in  which  the  people  of  Iconium  expressed 
their  gratitude  to  the  procurator  of  the  Galatic  province,  who  had 
been  charged  by  the  Emperor  Claudius  with  the  duty  of  re- 
organising the  city;  hence  they  call  him  "Founder."  The  city 
takes  its  new  name  of  Claudiconium  in  this  inscription,  and  the  date 
must  be  about  the  year  54.t  Here  Iconium  formally  reckons  itself 
as  Galatic. 

6.  When  a  large  part  of  Pontus  was  incorporated  in  the  province 
about  A.D.  2 — 35  it  was  named  Galaticus,  i.e.,  the  part  of  Pontus 
attached  to  the  province  Galatia,  as  distinguished  from  Pontus 
Polemoniacus,  i.e.,  the  part  of  Pontus  governed  by  King  Polemon. 

*  I  have  published  it  in  American  journal  of  Archceology, 
1886,  p.  129,  1888,  p.  267. 

t  C.  I.  G.  3991.  The  date  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  procurator 
was  appointed  by  Claudius,  who  died  October  13th,  54  ;  and  the 
inscription  was  composed  under  his  successor  Nero. 


/.    General.  1 5 

The  term  Galaticus  implies  that  Galatia  was  recognised  as  the 
official  name  of  the  province.  Precisely  the  same  distinction  exists 
between  Lycaonia  Galatica  and  Lycaonia  Antiochiana  (C.  I.  L.,  V., 
8860). 

7.  There  are  cases  in  which  the  Roman  ofiScial  title  of  a  province 
was  a  compound  name,  e.g.,  Bithynia  Pontus,  Lycia  Pamphylia, 
the  three  Eparchiae,  Cilicia,  Lycaonia,  Isauria.  But  in  all  these 
cases  there  was  a  permanent  distinction  between  the  component 
parts :  each  retained  a  certain  individuality  of  constitution,  which 
is  well  marked  in  our  authorities.  In  the  case  of  Galatia  there  is  no 
trace  *  that  such  distinction  between  its  constituent  parts  existed  ; 
but  all  the  evidence  points  to  the  conclusion  that  the  parts  were  as 
much  merged  in  the  unity  of  the  province  as  Phrygia  was  in  Asia. 
The  name  Phrygia  retained  its  geographical  existence  as  a  district 
of  Asia  ;  but  the  official  name  of  the  province  was  Asia. 

8.  Under  Vespasian  the  province  Cappadocia  was  added  to 
Galatia,  but  continued  to  enjoy  a  separate  constitution.  The  governor 
presided  over  united,  yet  distinct,  provinces  ;  and  this  novelty  is 
clearly  marked  in  the  inscriptions,  which  henceforward  use  the  plural 
term  "  provinciarum,"  or  firapxfiav' 

9.  After  Cappadocia  was  separated  from  Galatia  by  Trajan,  the 
plural  usage  persisted,  at  least  in  some  cases,  as  is  clear  from  the 
inscription  given  in  C.  I.  L.,  III.,Suppl.,  No.  6813.  This  is  contrary 
to  the  old  usage.  The  plural  gave  more  dignity  to  the  title ;  and, 
moreover,  it  was  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  individuality  which 
was  stimulated  in  these  oriental  districts  by  western  education  and 
feeling  under  the  Empire.  It  is  possible  that  the  Koinon  of  the 
Lycaonians  was  founded  under  the  Flavian  Emperors,  but  I  still 
think  that  it  was  instituted  later  (see  Ji/z's^.  Geogr.,  p.  378).  It  is, 
however,  not  improbable  that  a  distinction  in  constitution  between 
Lycaonia  and  Galatia  proper  began  in  the  Flavian  period,  and 
culminated  in  their  separation  between  137  and  161  A.D.,  when 
Lycaonia  became  one  of  the  three  southern  Eparchiae  under  a  single 
governor. 

•  One  exception,  dating  from  the  second  century,  is  alluded  to 
below  (9).  Consideration  of  space  prevents  me  from  discussing  more 
fully  the  evidence  in  favour  of  identity  in  constitution  among  the 
various  parts  of  Galatia  Frovincia. 


CHAPTER  II. 

LOCALITIES  OF  THE  FIRST  JOURNEY. 

I.  Pamphylia. 

IT  was  about  the  year  48  or  49,  probably,  that  Paul, 
Barnabas,  and  Mark  landed  at  Perga.  They  had  sailed 
some  miles  up  the  Cestrus  in  the  ship  which  had  brought 
them  from  Paphos  in  Cyprus.  The  feat  seems  so  remark- 
able in  view  of  the  present  character  of  the  river,  even  duly 
considering  the  small  size  of  the  ship,  as  to  show  that  much 
attention  must  have  been  paid  in  ancient  times  to  keeping 
the  channel  of  the  river  navigable.  Similarly  it  is  a  well- 
attested  fact  that  Ephesus  was  formerly  accessible  to  sea- 
borne traffic,  and  the  large  works  constructed  along  the 
lower  course  of  the  Caystros  to  keep  its  channel  open  as 
far  as  Ephesus,  can  still  be  seen  as  one  rides  from  the  city 
down  to  the  coast 

The  only  incident  recorded  as  having  occurred  during 
their  stay,  obviously  a  brief  one,  at  Perga,  has  no  relation 
to  the  state  of  the  country,  and  therefore  we  need  not  spend 
time  on  it  at  present.  At  a  later  point  in  our  investigation 
it  will  be  possible  to  acquire  a  better  idea  of  the  relations 
among  the  three  travellers  and  their  separation,  which  took 
place  at  Perga.  At  present  we  cannot  gain  from  the 
narrative  any  idea  even  of  the  time  of  year  when  they  were 
at  that  city. 

Conybeare  and  Howson  indeed  in  their  Life  and  Epistles 


//.    Localities  of  the  First  Journey,  17 

of  St.  Paul*  argue  that  Paul  and  Barnabas  came  to  Perga 
about  May,  and  found  the  population  removing  en  masse  to 
the  upper  country,  to  live  in  the  cooler  glens  amid  the 
mountains  of  Taurus.  In  this  way  they  explain  why  the 
apostles  are  not  said  to  have  preached  in  Perga  ;  they  went 
on  to  the  inner  country,  because  no  population  remained 
in  Perga  to  whom  they  could  address  themselves.  But 
C.  H.  can  hardly  be  right  in  supposing  that  a  general 
migration  of  the  ancient  population  took  place  annually 
in  the  spring  or  early  summer.  The  modern  custom 
which  they  mention,  and  which  they  suppose  to  be 
retained  from  old  time,  is  due  to  the  semi-nomadic 
character  of  the  Turkish  tribes  that  have  come  into  the 
country  at  various  times  after  the  twelfth  century.  Even 
at  the  present  day  it  is  not  the  custom  for  the  population 
of  the  coast  towns,  who  have  not  been  much  affected  by 
the  mixture  of  Turkish  blood,  to  move  away  in  a  body 
to  the  interior.!  The  migrations  which  take  place  are 
almost  entirely  confined  to  certain  wandering  tribes,  chiefly 
Yuruks.  A  small  number  of  the  townsmen  go  up  to 
the  higher  ground  for  reasons  of  health  and  comfort ; 
and  this  custom  has  in  recent  years  become  more  common 
among  the  wealthier  classes  in  the  towns,  who,  however. 


*  I  need  not  quote  the  pages  of  this  excellent  and  scholarly  work, 
partly  because  it  is  published  in  editions  of  various  form,  partly 
because  any  one  who  desires  to  verify  my  references  to  it  can 
easily  do  so.  As  I  shall  often  have  occasion  to  refer  to  the  book, 
I  shall,  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  do  so  by  the  authors'  initials  C.  H. 
In  this  particular  point  C.  H.  are  followed  by  Canon  Farrar. 

t  The  rule  is  universal :  such  migrations  occur  only  where  the 
Turkish  element  in  the  population  is  supreme,  and  where  therefore 
the  nomadic  habit  has  persisted.  Yaila  and  Kishla  denote  the 
summer  and  the  winter  quarters  respectively. 

2 


S^.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor, 


do  not  go  away  from  the  cities  till  the  end  of  June  or 
July.  But  a  migration  en  masse  is  contrary  to  all  that 
we  know  about  the  ancient  population.  The  custom  of 
living  in  the  country  within  the  territory  of  the  city  is 
a  very  different  thing ;  and  this  was  certainly  practised 
by  many  of  the  people  of  Perga.  But  it  is  practically 
certain  that  the  territory  of  Pcrga  did  not  include  any 
part  of  the  upper  highlands  of  Taurus  ;  and  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  festivals  and  the  ceremonial  of 
the  Pergaean  Artemis  went  on  througliout  the  summer, 
and  were  celebrated  by  the  entire  population.  The 
government  was  kept  up  during  summer  in  the  same 
way  as  during  winter. 

2.    PiSIDIA   AND   AyO    PAVLO. 

The  apostles,  starting  from  Perga,  apparently  after  only 
a  very  brief  stay,  directed  their  steps  to  Antioch,  the  chief 
city  of  inner  Pisidia,  a  Roman  colony,  a  strong  fortress,  the 
centre  of  military  and  civil  administration  in  the  southern 
parts  of  the  vast  province  called  by  the  Romans  Galatia. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  there  existed  close  commercial 
relations  between  this  metropolis  on  the  north  side  of 
Taurus  and  the  Pamphylian  harbours,  especially  Side, 
Perga,  and  Attalia.  The  roads  from  Antioch  to  Perga  and 
to  Attalia  coincide  ;  that  which  leads  to  Side  is  quite 
different.  There  can  also  be  no  doubt  that  in  Antioch,  as 
in  many  of  the  cities  founded  by  the  Seleucid  kings  of 
Syria,  there  was  a  considerable  Jewish  population.  Josephus 
mentions  that,  when  the  fidelity  of  Asia  Minor  to  the 
Seleucid  kings  was  doubtful,  2,000  Jewish  families  were 
transported  by  one  edict  to  the  fortified  towns  of  Lydia 


//.    Localities  of  the  First  Journey.  19 

and  Phrygia.*  Being  strangers  to  their  neighbours  in  their 
new  home,  they  were  likely  to  be  faithful  to  the  Syrian 
kings  ;  and  special  privileges  were  granted  them  in  order 
to  insure  their  fidelity.  These  privileges  were  confirmed 
by  the  Roman  emperors  ;  for  the  imperial  policy  was, 
from  the  time  of  Julius  Cassar  onwards,  almost  invariably 
favourable  to  the  Jews.  The  commerce  of  Antioch  would 
in  part  come  to  Perga  and  Attalia ;  and  in  all  proba- 
bility the  Jews  of  Antioch  had  an  important  share  in  this 
trade. 

Paul  therefore  resolved  to  go  to  Antioch ;  and  the 
immediate  result  was  that  one  of  his  companions,  for  some 
reason  about  which  we  shall  of  cr  some  suggestions  later, 
abandoned  the  expedition,  and  returned  to  Jerusalem. 

The  commerce  between  Antioch  and  Perga  or  Attalia 
must  of  course  have  followed  one  definite  route ;  and  Paul 
and  Barnabas  would  naturally  choose  this  road.  C.  H.  seem 
to  me  to  select  a  very  improbable  path  :  they  incline  to  the 
supposition  that  the  Apostles  went  by  the  steep  pass  leading 
from  Attalia  to  the  Buldur  Lake,  the  ancient  Lake  Ascania. 
Professor  Kiepert,  who  has  drawn  the  map  attached  to 
Kenan's  Saint  Paul,  makes  the  Apostles  ascend  the  Cestrus 
for  great  part  of  its  course,  and  then  diverge  towards  Egerdir. 
C.  H.  also  state  unhesitatingly  that  the  path  led  along  the 
coast  of  the  Egerdir  double  lakes,  the  ancient  Limnai, 
the  most  picturesque  sheet  of  water  in  Asia  Minor.  But  the 
natural,  easy,  and  direct  course  is  along  one  of  the  eastern 
tributaries  of  the  Cestrus  to  Adada  ;  and  we  must  suppose 

•  Joseph.,  Antiq.  Jud.  xii.  3.  It  must  be  remembered  that, 
though  Antioch  is  generally  called  of  "  Pisidia,"  yet  the  bounds 
were  very  doubtful,  and  Strabo  reckons  Antioch  to  be  in  Phrygia. 
It  was  doubtless  one  of  the  fortresses  here  meant  by  Strabo. 


20  S^.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

that  this  commercial  route  was  the  one  by  which  the 
strangers  were  directed. 

Adada  now  bears  the  name  of  Kara  Bavlo.  Bavlo  is 
exactly  the  modern  pronunciation  of  the  Apostle's  name. 
In  visiting  the  district  I  paid  the  closest  attention  to  the 
name,  in  order  to  observe  whether  Baghlu  might  not  be  the 
real  form,  and  Bavlo  an  invention  of  the  Greeks,  who  often 
modify  a  Turkish  name  to  a  form  that  has  a  meaning  in 
Greek.*  But  I  found  that  the  Turks  certainly  use  the  form 
Bavlo,  not  Baghlu.  The  analogy  of  many  other  modern 
Turkish  names  for  cities  makes  it  highly  probable  that  the 
name  Bavlo  has  arisen  from  the  fact  that  Paul  was  the 
patron  saint  of  the  city,  and  the  great  church  of  the  city 
was  dedicated  to  him.  It  was  very  common  in  Byzantine 
times  that  the  name  of  the  saint  to  whom  the  church  of  a 
city  was  dedicated  should  come  to  be  popularly  used  in 
place  of  the  older  city  name.  In  this  way  apparently 
Adada  became  Ayo  Pavlo.  Now  such  religious  names 
were  specially  a  creation  of  the  popular  language,  and 
accordingly  they  were  taken  up  by  the  Turkish  conquerors, 
and  have  in  numerous  cases  persisted  to  the  present  day.f 

It  is  impossible  not  to   connect   the   fact   that    Adada 


*  For  example,  they  have  transformed  Baluk  hissar,  "  Town  of 
the  Castle,"  into  Bali-kesri,  "  Old  Caesareia."  Baluk,  as  I  am 
informed  by  Kiepert,  is  an  old  Turkish  word,  not  now  used  in  the 
spoken  language,  meaning  "  town  "  ;  it  is  a  very  common  element  in 
Turkish  names,  and  being  now  obsolete  is  commonly  confused  with 
other  words.  C.  H.  quote  a  report  heard  by  Arundel  about  the 
existence  of  Bavlo  (or  Paoli,  as  he  gives  it)  ;  but  they  suppose  it  to 
be  on  the  Eurymedon,  and  far  away  east  of  the  road  which  they 
select. 

t  Various  examples  are  given  in  Hist.  Geogr.,  p.  227  note ;  e.g., 
Aitamas  {i.e.,  Ayi  Thomas),  Elias,  Tefenni  {i.e.^  [ft?  ll^re^avov),  etc. 


//.    Localities  of  the  First  Journey.  2 1 

looked  to  St.  Paul  as  its  patron  with  its  situation  on  the 
natural  route  between  Antioch  and  Perga ;  the  church 
dedicated  to  Paul  probably  originated  in  the  belief  that  the 
Apostle  had  visited  Adada  on  his  way  to  Antioch,  There 
is  no  evidence  to  show  whether  this  belief  was  founded  on 
a  genuine  ancient  tradition,  or  was  only  an  inference,  drawn 
after  Adada  was  christianised,  from  the  situation  of  the 
city  ;  but  the  latter  alternative  appears  more  probable.  It 
is  obvious  from  the  narrative  in  Acts  xiii.  that  Paul  did 
not  stop  at  Adada  ;  and  it  is  not  likely  that  there  was  a 
colony  of  Jews  there,  through  whom  he  might  make  a 
beginning  of  his  work,  and  who  might  retain  the  memory 
of  his  visit. 

It  is  possible  that  some  reference  may  yet  be  found  in 
Eastern  hagiological  literature  to  the  supposed  visit  of  Paul 
to  Adada,  and  to  the  church  from  which  the  modern  name 
is  derived.  If  the  belief  existed,  there  would  almost 
certainly  arise  legends  of  incidents  connected  with  the 
visit ;  and  though  the  local  legends  of  this  remote  and 
obscure  Pisidian  city  had  little  chance  of  penetrating  into 
literature,  there  is  a  possibility  that  some  memorial  of  them 
may  still  survive  in  manuscript. 

Rather  more  than  a  mile  south  of  the  remains  of  Adada, 
on  the  west  side  of  the  road  that  leads  to  Perga,  stand 
the  ruins  of  a  church  of  early  date,  built  of  fine  masonry, 
but  not  of  very  great  size.  The  solitary  situation  of 
this  church  by  the  roadside  suggests  to  the  spectator  that 
there  was  connected  with  it  some  legend  about  an  apostle 
or  martyr  of  Adada.  It  stands  in  the  forest,  with  trees 
growing  in  and  around  it ;  and  its  walls  rise  to  the  height 
of  five  to  eight  feet  above  the  present  level  of  the  soil.  One 
single  hut  stands  about  half  a  mile  away  in  the  forest ;  no 


22  5/.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor, 

other  habitation  is  near.  Adada  itself  is  a  solitary  and 
deserted  heap  of  ruins  ;  there  is  a  small  village  with  a  fine 
spring  of  water  about  a  mile  north-east  from  it.  So  lonely 
is  the  country,  that,  as  we  approached  it  from  the  north 
our  guide  failed  to  find  the  ruins  ;  and,  when  he  left 
us  alone  in  the  forest,  we  were  obliged  to  go  on  for  six 
miles  to  the  nearest  town  before  we  could  find  a  more 
trustworthy  guide.  After  all,  we  found  that  we  had  passed 
within  three  or  four  hundred  yards  of  the  ruins,  which  lay 
on  a  hill  above  our  path. 

The  ruins  of  Adada  are  very  imposing  from  their  extent, 
from  the  perfection  of  several  small  temples,  and  from  their 
comparative  immunity  from  spoliation.  No  one  has  used 
them  as  a  quarry,  which  is  the  usual  fate  of  ancient  cities. 
The  buildings  are  rather  rude  and  provincial  in  type,  show- 
ing that  the  town  retained  more  of  the  native  character, 
and  was  less  completely  affected  by  the  general  Grssco- 
Roman  civilisation  of  the  empire.  I  may  here  quote  a  few 
sentences  which  I  wrote  immediately  after  visiting  the 
ruins.* 

"  With  little  trouble,  and  at  no  great  expense,  the  mass 
of  ruins  might  be  sorted  and  thoroughly  examined,  the 
whole  plan  of  the  city  discovered,  and  a  great  deal  of 
information  obtained  about  its  condition  under  the  empire. 
Nothing  can  be  expected  from  the  ruins  to  adorn  a 
museum  ;  for  it  is  improbable  than  any  fine  works  of  art 
ever  came  to  Adada,  and  certain  that  any  accessible 
fragment  of  marble  which  ever  was  there  has  been  carried 


*  Athenceum,  July  i8go,  p.  136,  in  a  letter  written  in  part  by  my 
friend  and  fellow-traveller  Mr.  Hogarth  ;  the  description  of  Adada 
was  assigned  to  me. 


//.    Localities  of  the  First  Journey.  23 

away  long  ago.  But  for  a  picture  of  society  as  it  was 
formed  by  Grasco-Roman  civilisation  in  an  Asiatic  people, 
there  is  perhaps  no  place  where  the  expenditure  of  a  few 
hundreds  would  produce  such  results.  The  opinion  will 
not  be  universally  accepted  that  the  most  important  and 
interesting  part  of  ancient  history  is  the  study  of  the 
evolution  of  society  during  the  long  conflict  between 
Christianity  and  paganism  ;  but  those  who  hold  this 
opinion  will  not  easily  find  a  work  more  interesting  and 
fruitful  at  the  price  than  the  excavation  of  Adada." 

C.  H.  are  right  in  emphasizing  the  dangers  to  which 
travellers  were  exposed  in  this  part  of  their  journey  : 
"perils  of  rivers,  perils  of  robbers."  The  following  in- 
stances, not  known  to  C.  H.,  may  be  here  quoted.  They 
all  belong  to  the  Pisidian  highlands,  not  far  from  the 
road  traversed  by  the  Apostles,*  and,  considering  how 
ignorant  we  are  of  the  character  of  the  country  and  the 
population,  it  is  remarkable  that  such  a  large  proportion 
of  our  scanty  information  relates  to  scenes  of  -^anger  and 
precautions  against  violence, 

I.  A  dedication  and  thank-offering  by  Me«iis  son  of  Daos 
to  Jupiter,  Neptune,  Minerva,  and  all  the  gods,  and  also  to 
the  river  Eurus,  after  he  had  been  in  danger  and  had  been 
saved.!  This  inscription  records  an  escape  from  drowning 
in  a  torrent  swollen  by  rain.  There  is  no  river  in  the 
neighbourhood  which  could  cause  danger  to  a  man,  except 
when  swollen  by  rain. 

•  If  the  road  was  frequented  by  commerce,  it  would  of  course  be 
more  dangerous.  Brigands  must  make  a  living,  and  go  where  most 
money  is  to  be  found. 

t  Abb6  Duchesne  in  Bulletin  de  Corresp  Hellen.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  479. 
The  name  of  the  river  is  uncertain,  Eurus  or  Syrus  ;  I  tried  in  vain  to 
find  the  stone  in  1886,  in  order  to  verify  the  text. 


24  ►S'^.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

2.  An  epitaph  erected  by  Patrokles  and  Douda  over  the 
grave  of  their  son,  Sousou,  a  policeman,  who  was  slain  by 
robbers* 

3.  References  to  gens  d'armes  of  various  classes  {opo- 
^vXa/ce?,  'rrapa<})v\aKCTat)  occur  with  unusual  frequency  in 
this  district.  Very  few  soldiers  were  stationed  in  Pisidia  ; 
and  armed  policemen  were  a  necessity  in  such  an  unruly 
country.f 

4.  A  stationarius^  part  of  whose  duty  was  to  assist  in  the 
capture  of  runaway  slaves  (often  the  most  dangerous  of 
brigands),  is  also  mentioned  in  an  inscription.! 

The  roads  all  over  the  Roman  Empire  were  apt  to  be 
unsafe,  for  the  arrangements  for  insuring  public  safety  were 
exceedingly  defective  ;  but  probably  the  part  of  his  life 
which  St.  Paul  had  most  in  mind  when  he  wrote  about 
the  perils  of  rivers  and  of  robbers,  which  he  had  faced  in 
his  journeys,  was  the  journey  from  Perga  across  Taurus  to 
Antioch  and  back  again. 

Between  Adada  and  Antioch  the  road  is  uncertain.  One 
of  the  paths  leads  along  the  south-east  end  of  Egerdir  Lake, 
traversing  the  difficult  pass  now  called  Demir  Kapu,  "  the 
Iron  Gate."  But  I  believe  there  is  a  more  direct  and  easy 
road,  turning  from  Adada  towards  the  north-east,  though 
further  exploration  is  needed  before  it  is  possible  to  speak 
confidently. 

*  Professor  Sterrett  in  Epigra^hic  journey  in  Asia  Minor, 
p.  166. 

t  Historical  Geography  of  Asia  Minor,  pp.  177  ff. 

X  Mitiheilungen  des  Insiituis  zu  Athen,  1885,  p.  yj.  Examples 
might  be  multiplied  by  including  the  parts  of  Taurus  farther  removed 
from  the  road.  On  the  whole  subject  see  the  paper  of  Professor 
O.  Hirschfeld  in  Berlin.  Sitzungsber.,  1891,  pp.  845  ff.,  on  "Die 
Sicherheitspolizei  im  romischen  Kaiserreich." 


//.    Localities  of  the  First  Journey,  2  5 

3.   PiSIDIAN    ANTIOCH. 

The  city  of  Antioch  was  the  governing  and  military 
centre  of  the  southern  half  of  the  vast  province  of  Galatia, 
which  at  this  time  extended  from  north  to  south  right  across 
the  plateau  of  Asia  Minor,  nearly  reaching  the  Mediter- 
ranean on  the  south  and  the  Black  Sea  on  the  north. 
Under  the  early  emperors  it  possessed  a  rank  and  im- 
portance far  beyond  what  belonged  to  it  in  later  times. 
This  was  due  to  the  fact  that  between  10  B.C.  and  72  A.D. 
the  "  pacification  " — i.e.,  the  completion  of  the  conquest  and 
organisation — of  southern  Galatia  was  in  active  progress, 
and  was  conducted  from  Antioch  as  centre.  Under 
Claudius,  41-54  A.D.,  the  process  of  pacification  was  in 
especially  active  progress,  and  Antioch  was  at  the  acme  of 
its  importance. 

In  the  Roman  style,  then,  Antioch  belonged  to  Galatia, 
but,  in  popular  language  and  according  to  geographical 
situation,  it  was  said  to  be  a  city  of  Phrygia.  Even  a 
Roman  might  speak  of  Antioch  as  a  city  of  Phrygia,  if  he 
were  laying  stress  on  geographical  or  ethnological  consider- 
ations ;  for  the  province  of  Galatia  was  so  large  that  the 
Romans  themselves  subdivided  it  into  districts  (which  are 
enumerated  in  many  Latin  inscription.?),  e.g.,  Paphlagonia, 
Phrygia,  Isauria,  Lycaonia,  Pisidia,  etc.*  It  is  commonly 
said  that  Antioch  belonged  to  Pisidia,  but,  for  the  time  with 
which  we  are  dealing,  this  is  erroneous.  Strabo  is  quite 
clear  on  the  pointf     But  after  the  time  of  Strabo  there  took 

*  See  note  appended  to  Chap.  i. 

t  See  pages  557,  569,  577.  Ptolemy  mentions  Antioch  twice,  v. 
4.  II,  and  V.  5.  4;  in  one  case  he  assigns  it  to  the  district  Pisidia 
and  the  province  Galatia,  in  the  other  to  the  district  Pisidian 
Phrygia  {i.e.  the  part  of  Phrygia  which  had  come  to  be  included  in 


26  5/.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

place  a  gradual  widening  of  the  term  Pisidia  to  include  all 
the  country  that  lay  between  the  bounds  of  the  province  of 
Asia  and  Pisidia  proper.  It  is  important  to  observe  this 
and  similar  cases  in  which  the  denotation  of  geographical 
names  in  Asia  Minor  gradually  changes,  as  the  use  of  a 
name  sometimes  gives  a  valuable  indication  of  the  date 
of  the  document  in  which  it  occurs. 

The  accurate  and  full  geographical  description  of  Antioch 
about  45-50  A.D.  was  "a  Phrygian  city  on  the  side  of 
Pisidia  "  {^pvyia  ttoXi?  tt/so?  IltarcSia).  The  latter  addition 
was  used  in  Asia  Minor  to  distinguish  it  from  Antioch  on 
the  Masander,  on  the  borders  of  Caria  and  Phrygia.  But 
the  world  in  general  wished  to  distinguish  Antioch  from 
the  great  Syrian  city,  not  from  the  small  Carian  city  ; 
hence  the  shorter  expression  "  Pisidian  Antioch  "  (^AvTt6')(et,a 
r]  IltatBta)*  came  into  use,  and  finally,  as  the  term  Pisidia 
was  widened,  "  Antioch  of  Pisidia "  became  almost  uni- 
versal. The  latter  term  is  used  by  Ptolemy,  v.  4.  11,  and 
occurs  in  some  inferior  MSS.  in  Acts  xiii.  14.  "  Pisidian 
Antioch,"  however,  is  admittedly  the  proper  reading  in  the 
latter  passage.f 


Pisidia)  and  the  province  Pamphylia.  This  error  arises  from  his 
using-  two  authorities  belonging  to  different  periods,  and  not  under- 
standing the  relation  between  them.  He  makes  the  same  mistake 
about  several  other  places  :  e.g:,  Olba,  Claudiopolis,  etc.  {^Hist. 
Geogr.,  pp.  336,  363,  405,  447). 

*  Compare  Ptolemy's  "  Pisidian  Phrygia,"  quoted  in  the  preceding 
note. 

t  Codex  BezcB  reads  "Antioch  of  Pisidia,"  which  is  one  of  many 
proofs  that  it  is  founded  on  a  modernisation  of  the  text  made  not 
earlier  than  the  second  century  by  an  intelligent  and  well-informed 
editor.  This  editor  introduced  various  changes  which  betray  the 
topography  of  the  second  century. 


//.    Lccaliiies  of  the  First  Journey.  27 

From  these  facts  we  can  infer  that  it  would  have  been  an 
insult  to  an  Antiochian  audience,  the  people  of  a  Roman 
Colonia,  to  address  them  as  Pisidians.  Pisidia  was  the 
"  barbarian  "  mountain  country  that  lay  between  them  and 
Pamphylia  ;  it  was  a  country  almost  wholly  destitute  of 
Greek  culture,  ignorant  of  Greek  games  and  arts,  and  barely; 
subjugated  by  Roman  arms.  Antioch  was  the  guard  set 
upon  these  Pisidian  robbers,  the  trusted  agent  of  the 
imperial  authority,  the  centre  of  the  military  system  de- 
signed to  protect  the  subjects  of  Rome.  "  Men  of  Galatia" 
is  the  only  possible  address  in  cases  where  "  Men  of 
Antioch  "  is  not  suitable  ;  *  and  "  a  city  of  Phrygia  "  is  the 
geographical  designation  which  a  person  familiar  with  the 
city  would  use  if  the  honorific  title  "  a  city  of  Galatia " 
was  not  suitable.  These  accurate  terms  were  used  by  the 
Roman  Paul,  and  they  are  used  in  the  original  document 
employed  by  the  author  of  Acts,  though  in  one  case  the 
looser  but  commoner  phrase,  "  Pisidian  Antioch,"  is  used  to 
distinguish  it  from  Syrian  Antioch. 

4.  Route  from  Antioch  to  Iconium. 

As  to  the  route  by  which  Paul  and  Barnabas  travelled 
from  Antioch  to  Iconium,  widely  varying  opinions  have 
been  entertained  by  recent  authorities.  Professor  Kiepert, 
the  greatest  perhaps  of  living  geographers,  who  has  paid 
special  attention  to  the  difficult  problems  of  the  topography 
of  Asia  Minor,  has,  in  the  map  attached  to  Renan's  Saint 
Paul,  represented  that  in  all  his  three  journeys  Paul 
travelled  between  the  two  cities  alone  the  ereat  Eastern 


*  "  Phrygians  "  was  also  an  impossible  address,  for  Phrygian  had 
in  Greek  and  Latin  become  practically  equivalent  to  slave. 


28  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

Trade  Route,*  a  section  of  which  connected  Philomelium 
and  Laodicea  Katakekaumene  :  according  to  Kiepert,  Paul 
crossed  the  Sultan  Dagh  to  join  this  route  at  Philomelium, 
and  left  it  again  at  Laodicea  to  go  south  to  Iconium.  C.  H. 
indicate  his  route  along  the  western  side  of  Sultan  Dagh,  until 
that  lofty  ridge  breaks  down  into  hilly  country  on  the  south, 
across  which  the  route  goes  in  as  direct  a  line  as  possible 
to  Iconium.  The  map  attached  to  Canon  Farrar's  Saint 
Paul  indicates  a  route  midway  between  these  two,  passing 
pretty  exactly  along  the  highest  ridge  of  the  Sultan  Dagh. 

The  line  marked  out  by  C.  H.,  though  not  exactly  correct, 
approximates  much  more  closely  than  either  of  the  others 
to  that  which  we  may  unhesitatingly  pronounce  to  be  the 
natural  and  probable  one.  But,  partly  in  deference  to 
Professor  Kiepert's  well-deserved  and  universally  acknow- 
ledged authority,  and  partly  on  account  of  an  interesting 
problem  of  Christian  antiquities  which  in  part  hinges  on 
this  question,  it  is  necessary  to  state  as  briefly  as  possible 
the  main  facts. 

According  to  Kiepert,  Paul  in  going  and  in  returning 
crossed  the  lofty  Sultan  Dagh.  There  is  no  actual  pass 
across  that  lofty  ridge.  The  path  climbs  a  steep  and 
rugged  glen  on  one  side,  crosses  the  summit  of  the 
ridge  fully  4,000  feet  above  the  town  of  Antioch,  and 
descends  a  similar  glen  on  the  other  side.f  On  the  map 
Antioch  seems  very  near  Philomelium  ;  but  six  hours  of 
very  toilsome  travelling  lie  between  them.     Then  follows  a 

*  Of  this  road,  which  came  into  use  during  the  later  centuries 
B.C.,  and  which  was  the  main  arteiy  of  communication  and  govern- 
ment in  Asia  Minor  under  the  Roman  Empire,  a  full  account  is  given 
Hist.  Geogr.,  chaps,  iii.,  iv. 

t  See  the  description  given  of  the  crossing  by  my  friend,  Pro- 
fessor Sterrett,  in  his  Ef  {graphic  Journey  in  Asia  Minor,  p.  164. 


//.    Localities  of  the  First  Journey.  29 

peculiarly  unpleasant  road,  twenty-eight  hours*  in  length, 
by  Laodicea  to  Iconium.  Except  in  the  towns  that  lie  on 
the  road,  there  is  hardly  any  shade  and  little  water  along 
its  course.  It  is  exposed  to  the  sun  from  its  rising  to  its 
setting  :  and,  if  my  memory  is  correct,  there  are  only  two 
places  where  a  tree  or  two  by  the  roadside  afford  a  little 
shadow  and  a  rest  for  the  traveller.  This  road  makes  a 
circuit,  keeping  to  the  level  plain  throughout  ;  but  it  would 
not  be  used  by  pedestrians  like  Paul  and  Barnabas.  If 
they  went  to  Philomelium,  they  would  naturally  prefer  the 
direct  road  thence  to  Iconium  through  the  hill  country  by 
Kaballa.  This  path  is  nowhere  very  steep  or  difficult,  is 
often  shady  and  pleasant,  and  is  shorter  by  an  hour  or  two 
than  the  road  through  Laodicea ;  it  is  in  all  probability 
older  than  the  great  Trade  Route,  and  was  undoubtedly 
used  at  all  periods  for  direct  communication  by  horse  or 
foot  passengers  between  Philomelium  and  Iconium. 

But  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  Paul  ever  crossed  the 
Sultan  Dagh.  The  natural  path  from  Antioch  to  Iconium 
went  nearly  due  south  for  six  hours  by  the  new  Roman 
road  to  NeapoHs,  the  new  city  which  was  just  growing  up 
at  the  time.f     Thence  it  went  to  Misthia  on  the  north- 


*  The  "  hour  "  indicates  a  distance  of  about  three  miles,  or  slightly 
over.  The  exact  distances,  as  measured  for  the  proposed  extension 
of  the  Ottoman  Railway,  are, — 

Philomelium  to  Arkut  Khan       .         .     i8    miles  (6    hours). 
Arkut  Khan  to  Tyriaion  (Ilghin)       .     lo^     „      (3^     ,,     ). 
Ilghin  to  Kadin  Khan        .         .         .     16J     „      (5^     „     ). 
Kadin  Khan  to  Laodicea  .         .         .     13       „      (4       ,,     ), 
From  Laodicea  (Ladik)  to   Iconium  the   distance  (43   miles)  is 
measured  by  a  circuitous  route  to  avoid  a  ridge  :  the  distance  by 
road  cannot  be  much  over  z']  miles  (9  hours).     I  am  indebted  for 
these  figures  to  Mr.  Purser  and  Mr.  Cook. 
t  On  the  history  of  Neapolis,  see  Hist.  Geogr.,  pp.  396-7 


30  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

eastern  shores  of  the  great  lake  Caralis.  A  httle  way  beyond 
Misthia  it  diverged  from  the  Roman  road,  and  crossed  the 
hilly  country  by  a  very  easy  route  to  Iconium.  The  total 
distance  from  Antioch  to  Iconium  by  this  route  is  about 
twenty-seven  hours,*  as  compared  with  thirty-two  or  thirty- 
four  by  way  of  Philomelium.  This  route  is  still  in  regular 
use  at  the  present  day. 

The  line  indicated  in  the  map  of  C.  H.  is  straighter,  and 
I  believe  that  it  is  actually  practicable  ;  but  it  has  never 
been  traversed  by  any  explorer,  and  I  know  only  part  of 
the  country  through  which  it  runs.  It  would  pass  east 
of  Neapolis,  and  may  possibly  have  been  a  track  of  com- 
munication in  older  time.  But  in  B.C.  6  Augustus  formed 
a  series  of  roads  to  connect  the  Roman  colonies  which 
he  founded  as  fortresses  of  defence  against  the  Pisidian 
mountain  tribes. f  Hence  we  might  feel  some  confidence 
in  assuming  that  Paul  and  Barnabas  would  walk  as  far  as 
possible  along  the  Roman  road.  This  road  indeed  was  not 
the  shortest  line  between  Antioch  and  Iconium,  because 
its  purpose  was  to  connect  Antioch,  the  military  centre  of 
defence,  with  the  two  eastern  colonies,  Lystra  and  Parlais  ; 
and  it  did  not  touch  Iconium.  But  communication  would 
be  so  organised  as  to  use  the  well-made  road  to  the  utmost ; 
all  trade  undoubtedly  followed  this  track,  entertainment 
for  travellers  was  naturally  provided  along  it,  and  the  direct 
path,  though  a  little  shorter,  would  be  less  convenient 
and  would    no   longer   be   thought   of  or   used.     We  are 

*  Arundel,  Asia  Minor,  ii.,  p.  8.,  gives  the  distance  as  twenty- 
eight  hoars  by  report ;  neither  he  nor  Hamilton  traversed  this  route. 
No  description  of  the  road  is  published,  so  far  as  I  remember. 

t  The  existence  of  a  system  of  military  roads  may  always  be 
assumed,  according  to  the  Roman  custom,  connecting  a  system  of 
fortresses  {colonics)  on  these  roads.     See  pages  32,  34. 


//.    Localities  of  the  First  Jour 7tcy.  31 

not,  hcv/cvcr,  left  in  this  case  to  mere  probabilities.  We 
have  the  express  testimony  of  an  ancient  document  that 
Paul  used  this  Roman  road  ;  and  my  object  in  giving  this 
minute  and  perhaps  tedious  description  of  the  road  and 
of  its  origin  has  been  to  bring  home  to  the  reader  the 
exactness  with  which  this  document  describes  the  actual 
facts. 

The  document  in  question  is  one  of  the  apocryphal 
Apostle-legends,  the  Acts  of  Paul  and  TheJda,  The  general 
opinion  of  recent  scholars*  is  that  this  tale  was  composed 
about  the  latter  part  of  the  second  century  ;  and  in  that 
case  it  would  have  no  historical  value,  except  in  so  far  as  it 
quoted  older  documents.  Reserving  for  another  place 
the  whole  question  of  the  date  and  character  of  these  Acta, 
we  are  at  present  concerned  only  with  one  passage,  in  which 
the  road  from  Antioch  to  Iconium  is  described. 

In  the  opening  of  the  Acta  a  certain  Oncsiphorus,  resident 
at  Iconium,  heard  that  Paul  was  intending  to  come  thither 
from  Antioch.  Accordingly  he  went  forth  from  the  city  to 
meet  him,  and  to  invite  him  to  his  house.  And  he  pro- 
ceeded as  far  as  the  Royal  Road  that  leads  to  Lystra,  and 
there  he  stood  waiting  for  Paul  ;  and  he  scanned  the 
features  of  the  passers-by.f      And  he  saw  Paul  coming,  a 


•  There  are  some  exceptions. 

t  The  Greek  text  is  usually  and  naturally  translated,  "  he  pro- 
ceeded along  the  Royal  Road,"  but  the  following  cIorr/Ket  implies  that 
the  first  clause  indicates  the  point  to  which  Onesiphorus  went  and 
where  he  stood.  The  Syriac  translation  makes  the  sense  quite  clear  : 
"  he  went  and  stood  where  the  roads  meet,  on  the  highway  which  goes 
to  Lystra."  Lipsius,  in  his  recent  critical  edition,  omits  this  Syriac 
passage,  which  is  of  cardinal  importance.  In  several  cases  he  shows 
a  preference  for  the  easiest,  the  least  characteristic,  and  therefore 
the  worst  reading  ;  e.g.,  he  here  prefers  tpxanevovs  to  Sifpxofifvovs. 


32  S^.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor, 

man  small  in  size,  with  meeting  eyebrows,  with  a  rather 
large  nose,  baldheaded,  bowlegged,  strongly  built,  full  of 
grace,  for  at  times  he  looked  like  a  man,  and  at  times  he 
had  the  face  of  an  angel.  This  plain  and  unflattering 
account  of  the  Apostle's  personal  appearance  seems  to 
embody  a  very  early  tradition. 

The  "  Royal  Road  "  {^aaCkiKT)  6S09,  via  regalis)  that  leads 
to  Lystra  is  obviously  the  Roman  road  built  by  Augustus 
from  Antioch  to  Lystra.  The  epithet  is  a  remarkable  one, 
and  very  difficult  to  explain.  The  first  impression  that  any 
one  would  receive  from  it  is  that  it  denotes  the  Roman 
road  built  by  the  Basileis,  as  the  emperors  were  commonly 
called  in  the  second  century,  and  that  it  points  to  a  second 
century  date  more  naturally  than  to  any  earlier  period. 

So  far  as  I  can  judge,  this  argument  as  to  date  would  be 
unanswerable,  were  it  not  for  an  inscription  discovered  in 
1884  at  Comama,  the  most  western  of  Augustus'  Pisidian 
colonies,  a  city  whose  name  had  entirely  disappeared  from 
human  knowledge  until  this  and  other  Latin  inscriptions 
were  found  on  the  site.  It  was  then  observed  that  numerous 
coins  of  the  city  existed,  but  had  been  misread  and  attri- 
buted to  Comana  in  Cappadocia  ;  it  also  appeared  that  the 
city  was  mentioned  by  Ptolemy  and  other  authorities,  but 
that  the  name  was  always  corrupted. 

In  the  ruins  of  Comama  there  still  lies  a  milestone,  with 
the  inscription — 

"  The  Emperor  Caesar  Augustus,  son  of  a  god,  Ponti- 
fex  Maximus,  etc.,  constructed  the  Royal  Road  by  the 
care  of  his  heutenant,  Cornelius  Aquila."* 

*  C.  I.  L.  III.,  Supplem.,  No.  6,974.  Regalem,  suggested  tenta- 
tively by  Mommsen,  suits  the  copy  in  my  note-book  even  better  than 
appears  from  the  printed  text,  and  may  safely  be  accepted. 


//.    Localities  of  the  First  Journey.  33 

The  roads  built  by  Augustus  to  connect  his  Pisidian 
colonies*  were  doubtless  built  with  a  solidity  unusual  in  the 
country.  They  are  two  in  number,  one  leading  to  Olbasa 
Comama  and  Cremna,  the  other  to  Parlais  and  Lystra. 
The  former  is  called  Via  Regalis  on  the  milestone,  the  latter 
in  the  Acta. 

The  original  Acta  then  described  the  scene  with  a  minute 
fidelity  possible  only  to  a  person  who  knew  the  localities. 
Onesiphorus  went  out  from  Iconium  till  he  came  to  the 
point  a  few  miles  south  of  Misthia,  where  the  path  to 
Iconium  diverged  from  the  built  Roman  road  that  led  from 
Antioch  to  Lystra  ;  and  here  he  waited  till  he  observed 
Paul  coming  towards  him.  I  am  far  from  assuming  that 
the  facts  here  narrated  are  historical  ;  but  I  do  hold  that 
the  tale  was  written  down  by  a  person  familiar  with  the 
localities,  and  that  the  route  now  employed  for  traffic  be- 
tween Iconium  and  Antioch  was  used  to  the  exclusion  of 
any  other  at  the  time  when  he  wrote. 

It  is  therefore  proved  that  the  term  Royal  Road  in  the 
Acta  furnishes  no  proof  of  a  second  century  date.  It  may 
even  be  proved  that  the  term  is  not  consistent  with  an 
origin  later  than  the  first  century,  because  the  very  name 
Via  Regalis,  denoting  the  road  from  Antioch  to  Lystra,  was 
soon  disused.     The  sentence  where  it  occurs  was  writtenf 

*  The  name  "Pisidian"  is  convenient,  though  they  were  not  all 
in  Pisidia.  Augustus  in  enumerating  his  colonies  seems  to  sum 
them  all  up  as  in  Pisidia.  (Mommsen,  Monu?nentum  Ancyranu/n, 
p.  119  )  But  colonies  on  the  Pisidian  frontier  to  keep  under  control 
the  Pisidian  mountain  tribes  are  readily  called  Pisidian.  Thus  we 
have  above  explained  the  term  "  Pisidian  Antioch." 

t  No  mere  tradition  can  be  so  strong  as  to  fix  in  the  memory  of  pos- 
terity verbal  peculiarities  which  no  longer  correspond  to  actual  facts. 
It  will  appear  in  the  following  paragraphs  that  the  name  Via  Regalis 
was  retained  in  the  text  long  after  it  had  ceased  to  be  understood. 

3 


34  ^^'  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

before  the  name  passed  out  of  use.  Can  we  fix  approxi- 
mately the  date  when  the  name  ceased  to  exist,  and  before 
which  some  written  authority  for  the  tale  must  have  come 
into  existence  ?  Several  arguments  point  decisively  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  name  did  not  survive  the  first  century, 
but  belonged  to  a  state  of  the  country  which  characterised 
the  first  half  of  the  first  century  and  then  ceased  to  exist. 
As  this  subject  is  of  great  consequence  in  our  attempt  to 
realise  the  circumstances  in  which  Paul's  journey  was  made, 
and  has  never  been  properly  described  or  understood,  I 
shall  try  to  state  briefly  the  main  facts. 

The  purpose  of  Augustus's  roads  was  to  keep  in  order 
the  recently  subdued  Pisidian  mountaineers.  When  the 
pacification  of  Pisidia,  and  the  naturalisation  of  the  imperial 
rule  and  the  Grseco-Roman  civilisation  in  the  country 
had  been  completed,  the  need  for  these  roads  disappeared ; 
they  were  no  longer  maintained  by  the  imperial  govern- 
ment with  the  care  that  was  applied  to  roads  of  military 
importance,  and  they  were  merged  in  the  general  system 
of  communication  across  Asia  Minor.* 

The  period  when  this  pacification  of  Pisidia  was  taking 
place  can  be  determined  precisely  from  the  evidence  of 
coins,  of  inscriptions,  and  of  authors,  and  from  the  dates 
at  which  the  constitutions  of  cities  on  the  northern  fron- 
tiers were  fixed.  I  need  not  weary  the  reader  by  enume- 
rating here  the  long  lists  of  facts,  which  show  that  the 
earlier  emperors  from  Augustus  to  Nero  directed  close  and 
continuous  attention  to  this  district  of  Asia  Minor,  and 
that  in  the  reign  of  Claudius  the  process  of  organisation 

*  This  opinion  was  arrived  at  as  the  natural  explanation  of  the 
known  facts,  and  published  before  its  application  to  the  present 
case  had  become  apparent.    (See  Hist.  Geogr.,  pp.  57-8.) 


//.    Localities  of  the  First  Jou7'ney.  35 

was  in  specially  active  progress.  Vespasian  in  A.D.  74 
remodelled  the  government,  separated  great  part  of  Pisidia 
from  the  province  of  Galatia,  and  attached  it  to  Pamphylia,* 
This  marks  the  end  of  the  Pisidian  colonial  system  and 
military  roads.  Antioch,  the  centre  of  the  system,  was 
now  entirely  separated  from  at  least  three  of  the  colonies. f 
which  were  transferred  to  a  different  province.  Moreover 
there  were  no  soldiers  in  the  province  Lycia-Pamphylia,  as 
there  were  in  Galatia  ;  great  part  of  Pisidia  would  not 
have  been  united  to  the  unarmed  province,  unless  all 
possible  need  for  soldiers  and  garrisons  had  been  con- 
sidered to  be  at  an  end. 

Lystra,  the  most  easterly  point  of  the  colonial  system, 
must  have  been  a  place  of  great  importance  under  the  early 
emperors  ;  but  after  74  it  sank  back  into  the  insignificance 
of  a  small  provincial  town  with  nothing  to  distinguish  it. 
Direct  communication  between  Antioch  and  Lystra  had 
previously  been  maintained  only  for  military  and  political 
reasons  ;  no  commerce  could  ever  have  existed  between 
them.  After  A.D.  74  therefore  the  road  from  Antioch  to 
Lystra  ceased  to  be  thought  of  as  a  highway,  and  must 
have  disappeared  from  popular  language.  Iconium,  not 
Lystra,  was  the  natural  commercial  centre,  and  has  main- 
tained that  rank  from  the  earliest  time  to  the  present  day. 
Thus  the  road  from  Antioch  to  Iconium  was,  after  the  year 
74,  the  only  one  present  to  the  popular  mind ;  and  it  ceased 
to  be  possible  that  a  traveller  from  Antioch  to  Iconium 
should  be  described  as  going  along  the  road  to  Lystra  for  a 
certain  distance  and  then  diverging  from  it. 

*  He  made  Lycia  and  Pamphylia  a  single  province. 
t  Comama,   Cremna,   and   Olbasa   were   henceforth   attached  to 
Pamphylia. 


36  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  way  in  which  the  figure  of  Paul 
dwarfed  that  of  Barnabas  in  the  memory  of  later  genera- 
tions that  no  reference  to  the  latter  occurs  in  these  Acta. 
The  companions  of  Paul  are  only  the  treacherous  Hermo- 
genes  and  Demas.  An  example  of  the  same  feeling  is 
observable  in  the  text  of  Codex  Bezce,  xiv,,  i.  The  reviser 
has  there  substituted  "he"  for  "they."*  The  change 
is  entirely  out  of  accord  with  the  tone  of  the  "Travel- 
Document,"  but  in  perfect  agreement  with  later  tradition  in 
the  district,  as  attested  in  the  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla. 
Such  a  change  would  not  naturally  be  made  except  in  a 
country  where  the  memory  and  influence  of  St.  Paul  was 
especially  strong.  That  this  was  the  case  in  Phrygia  during 
the  second  century  is  proved  by  the  Testament  of  Avircius 
Marcellus, dating  about  190-200  AD. ;  f  and  we  may  safely 
assume  that  the  same  feeling  would  remain  in  the  Galatian 
churches. 

5.    ICONIUM. 

According  to  the  route  described,  Paul  and  Barnabas 
entered  Iconium  from  the  west,  having  a  good  view  of  the 
extensive  gardens  and  orchards,  which  form  such  a  charm- 
ing feature  of  the  suburbs.  C.  H.  give  a  very  fair  account 
of  Iconium.t  of  the  great  part  that  it  played  in  later 
history,  and  of  the  natural  features  amid  which  it  is  placed, 


*  ftVeX^etv  avThv  els  Trju  crvvayooyTJv.  On  the  reviser,  his  character 
and  date,  see  Chapter  VIII. 

t  See  Ex;positor,  April  1889,  p.  265. 

\  But  they  ought  not  to  quote  Leake's  incorrect  statement  that 
Mount  Argaeus  in  Cappadocia  is  visible  from  the  outskirts  of  the 
city.  Hamilton  has  rightly  expressed  his  disbelief  in  this  state- 
ment. The  two  snowy  peaks  which  Leake  saw  are  the  peaks  of 
the  Hassan  Dagh,  a  lofty  mountain  north-west  of  Tyana,  which  I 


//.    Localities  of  the  First  Journey.  37 

at  the  western  extremity  of  the  vast  plains  of  Lycaonia, 
with  a  mountainous  country  beginning  to  the  west  about 
six  miles  away,  and  hills  on  the  north  and  south  at  a  distance 
of  about  ten  or  twelve  miles. 

Iconium  was  in  early  times  a  city  of  Phrygia,  situated  on 
the  eastern  frontier,  where  Phrygia  borders  on  Lycaonia  ; 
but  in  later  times  it  was  called  a  city  of  Lycaonia.  It  is 
important  for  our  purposes  to  discover  at  what  period  it 
began  to  be  called  a  city  of  Lycaonia  and  ceased  to  be 
Phrygian.  Modern  geographers  all  state  that  no  writer 
later  than  Xenophon  calls  Iconium  Phrygian  ;  but  this  is 
erroneous.  In  Acts  xiv.  6  the  apostles,  being  in  danger  at 
Iconium,  are  said  to  "  have  fled  to  the  cities  of  Lycaonia, 
Lystra,  and  Dcrbe,  and  the  surrounding  country."  The 
writer  obviously  considered  that  in  their  flight  from 
Iconium  to  a  town  eighteen  miles  distant  they  crossed  the 
Lycaonian  frontier,  and  his  view  is  precisely  that  of  Xeno- 
phon, who  also  entered  Lycaonia  immediately  on  leaving 
Iconium. 

The  coincidence  is  perfect.  The  phrase  is  a  striking 
instance  of  local  accuracy,  and  at  the  same  time  a  strong 
proof  that  even  in  the  first  century  after  Christ  Iconium 
was  by  the  natives  reckoned  as  Phrygian.  It  is  true  that 
Cicero,  Strabo,  and  Pliny  make  Iconium  a  Lycaonian  city. 
This  constitutes  a  perfectly  satisfactory  proof  that  such  was 
the  general  usage  between  at  least  100  B.C.  and  100  A.D., 
founded  on  the  fact  that  for  administrative  purposes 
Iconium  was  united  with  Lycaonia  ;  but  it  is  quite  con- 
have  seen  from  a  still  greater  distance.  The  summit  of  Argaeus  is 
single,  and  though  it  is  higher  than  Hassan  Dagh,  being  about 
13,000  feet,  it  could  not  possibly  be  visible  from  such  a  distance  as 
Iconium ;  moreover,  Hassan  Dagh  lies  right  in  the  way. 


38  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

sistent  with  the  view  that  the  Iconians  continued  to  count 
themselves  Phrygian,  and  to  distinguish  themselves  from 
their  Lycaonian  neighbours  even  after  they  were  united 
with  them  in  one  governmental  district.  The  witness  to 
this  view  actually  visited  Iconium,  came  into  intimate 
relations  with  the  people,  and  spoke  according  to  the  native 
fashion. 

In  the  third  century  another  visitor's  testimony  assigns 
Iconium  to  Phrygia.  The  witness  is  Firmilian,  Bishop  of 
Csesarea  in  Cappadocia.  It  is  certain  that  he  had  visited 
the  city,  for  he  implies  that  he  was  present  at  the  council 
held  there  about  2 1 5  A.D.* 

The  supposition  that  the  Iconians  clung  to  their  old 
nationality,  after  it  had  become  a  mere  historical  memory 
devoid  of  political  reality,  may  appear  rather  hazardous,  as 
the  ancients  are  certainly  rather  loose  in  using  geographical 
terms.  But  one  who  has  studied  the  history  of  Asia  Minor 
realises  how  persistently  ethnical  and  national  distinctions 
were  maintained,  and  how  strong  were  the  prejudice  and 
even  antipathy  felt  by  each  tribe  or  nation  against  its 
neighbours.  The  Iconians  cherished  their  pride  of  birth  ; 
and  in  all  probability  difference  of  language  originally  em- 
phasised their  diversity  from  their  Lycaonian  neighbours. 
It  is  inconsistent  with  the  whole  character  of  these  races 
to  suppose  that  the  Phrygians  of  Iconium  could  be 
brought  to  call  themselves  Lycaonians,  and  to  give  up  the 
old  tribal  hatred  against  their  nearest  neighbours.  It  was 
precisely  the  nearness  which  accentuated  the  hatred. 

*  See  Cyprian,  Epist.  Ixxv.  7.  On  the  other  hand,  Ammianus 
speaks  of  it  as  a  town  of  Pisidia  ;  the  rearrangement  of  the  provinces 
about  A.D.  297  led  to  this  temporary  connection,  which  does  not 
concern  us.     (See  Hist.  Geogr.,  p.  393.) 


//.    Localities  of  the  First  Journey.  39 

This  tribal  jealousy  is  characteristic  of  Asia  Minor  still. 
The  traveller  frequently  finds  the  people  of  two  neigh- 
bouring villages  differing  from  each  other  in  manners  and 
in  dress  ;  they  speak  the  same  language,  profess  the  same 
religion,  but  have  little  intercourse  with  each  other  and 
no  intermarriage,  and  each  village  regards  the  other  as 
hateful  and  alien.* 

But  I  should  hardly  have  ventured  to  state  this  suppo- 
sition publicly,  were  I  not  able  to  prove  it  by  the  testimony 
of  the  only  native  of  Iconium  whose  evidence  is  preserved 
to  us.  In  the  year  163  A.D.  Hierax,  one  of  the  Christians 
associated  with  Justin  Martyr  in  his  trial  before  the  Prefect 
of  Rome,  Junius  Rusticus,  was  asked  by  the  judge  who  his 
parents  were.  He  replied,  "  My  earthly  parents  are  dead  ; 
and  I  have  come  hither  {i.e.,  as  a  slave),  torn  away  from 
Iconium  of  Phrygia."t 

By  this  single  testimony  of  a  native,  preserved  in  such 
an  accidental  way,  we  are  enabled  to  realise  that  the  ex- 
pression in  Acts  xiv.  6  was  contrary  to  general  usage  and 
peculiar  to  Iconium,  and  that  it  could  hardly  have  occurred 
except  to  one  who  had  actually  lived  in  the  city  and  caught 
the  tone  of  its  population.     It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  for 


*  After  the  "  Union  of  the  Lycaonians  "  was  established  towards 
the  middle  of  the  second  century  after  Christ,  Iconium  was  not  a 
member  ;  but  we  are  precluded  from  using  this  fact  as  evidence  that 
Iconium  still  held  aloof  in  social  matters  from  the  Lycaonians,  for 
it  had  been  made  a  Roman  colony  by  Hadrian,  and  as  such  it  was 
raised  far  above  the  level  of  the  "  Union  ";  the  colony  Lystra,  also, 
though  originally  a  Lycaonian  city,  did  not  condescend  to  join  it. 

t  Rusticus  was  prefect  in  A.D.  163,  as  Borghesi  has  shown.  Hierax 
was  in  all  probability  a  slave  of  the  Emperor.  It  is  noteworthy  that 
Ruinart  proposed  to  change  Phrygia  in  the  text  to  Lycaonia,  not  re- 
cognising the  importance  of  this  testimony.     (See  Acta  Justini,  3.) 


40  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

me  to  reply  to  the  possible  objection  that  Cicero  also 
visited  Iconium,  and  yet  he  calls  it  part  of  Lycaonia  ;  no 
one  who  has  comprehended  the  reasoning  would  make  this 
objection.  Cicero  was  a  Roman  governor,  who  looked  on 
Iconium  merely  as  the  chief  city  of  the  government  district. 
He  did  not  mix  with  the  people  or  catch  their  expressions. 
He  was  devoid  of  interest  in  the  people,  the  country,  the 
scenery,  and  the  antiquities  ;  the  smallest  scrap  of  political 
gossip  or  social  scandal  from  Rome  bulked  more  largely  in 
his  mind  than  the  entire  interests  of  Lycaonia.  A  complete 
change  of  feeling  towards  the  provincials  was  produced 
by  the  Imperial  government ;  and  no  better  proof  of  the 
change  can  be  found  than  the  contrast  between  Pliny's  and 
Cicero's  letters  written  from  their  respective  provinces. 

The  two  instances  which  have  been  mentioned  in  this 
chapter  show  how  accidental  is  the  preservation  of  the 
knowledge  which  enables  us  to  refute  negative  arguments. 
But  for  the  answer  given  in  the  Roman  trial  by  a  native  of 
Iconium  in  163  A.D.,  we  should  be  unable  to  reply  to  the 
argument  that  the  phrase  in  Acts  is  inaccurate,  because 
Iconium  was  universally  entitled  Lycaonian  in  the  centuries 
immediately  before  and  after  Christ ;  and  but  for  the  acci- 
dent that  in  1884  the  present  writer  persevered  in  minutely 
examining  a  hillock  in  the  plain,  which  had  previously 
been  passed  by  other  travellers  unnoticed,  we  should  be 
unable  to  answer  the  presumption  that  the  term  "  Royal 
Road,"  as  applied  to  a  Roman  Imperial  road,  indicated 
rather  a  second  than  a  first  century  date. 

Iconium  was,  under  the  Persian  Empire,  a  part  of 
Phrygia.  Afterwards  geographical  situation  prevailed  over 
tribal  character,  and  it  came  to  be  recognised  by  the  world 
in  general  as  the  chief  city  of  Lycaonia.     This  may  pro- 


//.  Localities  of  the  First  Journey.  41 

bably  have  taken  place  during  the  third  century  B.C.,  when 
it  was  part  of  the  vast  kingdom  ruled  by  the  Seleucidae  of 
Syria.  It  was  perhaps  in  63  B.C.  that  a  tetrarchy  of  Lyca- 
onia,  containing  fourteen  cities,  with  Iconium  as  capital, 
was  formed.  This  tetrarchy  was  given  to  King  Polemo  in 
39  B.C.  by  Mark  Antony  ;  but  soon  afterwards  it  passed 
into  the  hands  of  King  Amyntas,  and  on  his  death  it 
became  a  Roman  province  in  25  B.C.  The  tetrarchy  in- 
cluded Dcrbe,  which  was  the  frontier  city  of  the  Roman 
Empire  in  this  quarter  down  to  the  year  72  A.D. 

Under  the  Roman  Empire  one  of  the  most  prominent 
features  in  the  development  of  society  in  Asia  Minor  was 
the  way  in  which  it  was  affected,  first  by  the  Greek,  and 
afterwards  by  the  Graeco-Roman  civilisation.  The  Greek 
civilisation  was  dominant  in  a  few  great  cities,  which  had 
been  founded  or  reorganised  by  the  Greek  kings,  and  into 
which  many  foreigners — Greeks,  Syrians,  and  Jews — had 
been  introduced.  But  it  never  affected  the  country  very 
strongly  until  Roman  organisation  began  to  spread  abroad 
that  mixture  of  Greek  and  Roman  ideas  which  we  may  style 
the  Graco-Roman  civilisation.  Few  questions  relating  to 
Asia  Minor  during  the  first  two  centuries  of  the  Empire 
can  be  understood  properly  unless  we  appreciate  the  true 
character  of  this  movement,  which  took  the  form  of  a  con- 
flict between  the  native,  primitive.  Oriental,  "  barbarian  "  * 
manners  of  the  country  and  the  new  European  fashion. 
The  western  civilisation  and  spirit  spread  first  through  the 
towns,  and  at  a  later  time  very  slowly  through  the  country 
districts.     All    who  got  any  education  learned  the  Greek 

•  The  term  "barbarian  "  is,  of  course,  used  here  to  indicate  all 
that  is  opposed  in  character  to  "  Graeco-Roman." 


42  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor, 

language,  adopted  Greek  manners,  and  no  doubt  Greek 
dress  also,  called  themselves,  their  children,  and  their  gods 
by  Greek  names,  and  affected  to  identify  their  religion 
with  that  of  Greece  and  Rome.  All  this  class  of  persons 
despised  the  native  language  and  the  native  ways  ;  and 
just  as  they  adopted  Greek  mythology  and  Greek  anthro- 
pomorphic spirit  in  religion,  so  they  often  professed  to  be 
connected  with,  or  descended  from,  the  Greeks.* 

In  Iconium  especially,  the  metropolis  of  the  tetrarchy, 
the  population,  we  may  be  sure,  prided  themselves  on  their 
modern  spirit  and  their  high  civilisation  ;  and  they  naturally 
distinguished  themselves  both  from  the  rustics  of  the 
villages,  and  from  the  people  of  the  non-Roman  part  of 
Lycaonia.  Now  it  is  a  fact  that  the  latter  were  called  at 
this  time  Lycaones  ;  the  name  appears  on  the  coins  of 
Antiochus  IV.,  who  was  their  king  from  A.D.  38  to  72. f 
In  contrast  to  them,  the  Iconians  prided  themselves  on 
belonging  to  the  Roman  province  ;  for  the  loyalty  of  the 
Asian  provinces  to  the  empire  was  extraordinarily  strong. 
But,  if  they  contrasted  themselves  with  the  Lycaonian  sub- 
jects of  a  barbarian  king,  by  what  ethnic  or  geographical 
name  could  they  designate  themselves  ?  "  Phrygian  "  was 
equivalent   in    popular   usage  to   "  slave."      There  was  no 

*  It  is  characteristic  of  the  inconsistencies  and  curiosities  of 
"patriotism,"  that  the  same  persons  who  stubbornly  maintained 
that  they  were  Phrygians  in  contrast  with  their  Lycaonian  neigh- 
bours, were  flattered  by  any  suggestion  that  they  were  of  the 
Greek  style  and  kindred.  Myths  of  the  Greek  origin  of  Phrygian 
cities  are  common  (see,  e.g.,  Synnada,  Hist.  Geogr.,  p.  14).  It  would 
have  been,  of  course,  treasonable  to  coquet  in  any  way  with  the  name 
"  Roman." 

t  With  a  brief  interval,  39-41,  during  which  he  was  deprived  of  his 
kingdom  by  Caligula. 


//.    Localities  of  the  First  Journey.  43 

possible  name  for  them  except  that  which  was  derived  from 
the  Roman  province  to  which  they  belonged.  I  can  enter- 
tain no  doubt  that  about  50  A.D.  the  address  by  which  an 
orator  would  most  please  the  Iconians,  in  situations  where 
the  term  "  Iconians  "  was  unsuitable,  was  ai^Spe?  TcCKaraiy 
"  gentlemen  of  the  Galatic  province."  This  general  term 
was  still  more  necessary  in  addressing  a  mixed  audience 
drawn  from  various  towns  of  the  Roman  part  of  Lycaonia.* 
Some  term  applicable  to  all,  yet  not  calculated  to  grate  on 
the  ethnic  prejudices  of  any,  was  needed  for  purposes  of 
courtesy.  Besides  using  this  generic  term,  the  skilful  orator 
would  also  introduce  allusions  to  the  Greek  feeling  and 
culture  of  his  audience,  assuming  that  they  belonged  to  the 
more  advanced  and  intelligent  part  of  the  population. 

This  tone  of  courtesy  and  solicitude  for  the  feelings  of 
his  audience,  which  we  attribute  to  the  supposed  orator  of 
the  period,  is  precisely  the  tone  in  which  Paul  addresses 
the  "  Galatians  "  ;  and  he  introduces  in  iii.  28  an  allusion  to 
them  as  Greeks,  when  he  contrasts  them  with  the  Jews. 

The  most  instructive  commentary  on  St.  Paul's  way  of 
addressing  the  Galatians  is  to  be  found  in  the  orations  of 
Dio  Chrysostom  half  a  century  later,  addressed  to  the  people 
of  Nicomedeia,  of  Nicaea,  of  Apameia  in  Bithynia,  and  of 
Apameia  in  Phrygia.  In  the  latter  case  he  pointedly  avoids 
an  ethnic  term  :  "  Phrygians "  had  a  bad  connotation, 
"  Asians  "    was  too  general  ;    and  he  styles  them  simply 

•  But  when  we  take  into  account  that  Antioch  also  was  one  of 
the  churches  addressed,  the  term  "Galatians  "  becomes  still  more 
necessary.  In  the  apostrophe,  "Ye  foolish  Galatians,"  the  adjective 
is  softened  by  the  polite  and  general  ethnic  appellation  :  it  would 
have  been  personal  and  rude  to  say,  "Ye  foolish  Antiochians  and 
Iconians,"  etc. 


44  S^.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

"  Gentlemen."  But  he  uses  the  old  historic  name  Kelainai, 
not  the  modern  name  Apameia,  -and  he  speaks  of  their 
country  sometimes  as  Asia,  sometimes  by  the  more  precise 
geographical  term  Phrygia. 

An  objection  may  be  urged  that  Christianity  was  opposed 
to  such  a  tone  as  is  here  implied  in  the  civilised  towns- 
people towards  the  ruder  population  of  the  uncivilised 
extra-Roman  districts.  But  this  objection  seems  to  be  out 
of  keeping  with  the  facts.  The  Christian  Church  in  Asia 
Minor  was  always  opposed  to  the  primitive  native  cha- 
racter. It  was  Christianity,  and  not  the  Imperial  govern- 
ment, which  finally  destroyed  the  native  languages,  and 
made  Greek  the  universal  language  of  Asia  Minor.  The 
new  religion  was  strong  in  the  towns  before  it  had  any  hold 
of  the  country  parts.  The  ruder  and  the  less  civilised  any 
district  was,  the  slower  was  Christianity  in  permeating  it. 
Christianity  in  the  early  centuries  was  the  religion  of  the 
more  advanced,  not  of  the  "  barbarian,"  peoples ;  and  in 
fact  it  seems  to  be  nearly  confined  within  the  limits  of  the 
Roman  world,  and  practically  to  take  little  thought  of  any 
people  beyond,  though  in  theory  "  Barbarian  and  Scythian  " 
are  included  in  it. 

Why  then,  it  may  be  asked,  does  St.  Paul  counte- 
nance the  expression,  "  the  cities  of  Lycaonia,  Lystra  and 
Derbe"?  Simply  because  in  the  narrative  he  is  expressing 
himself  geographically,  and  is  using  the  precise  words  in 
which  his  advisers  and  informants  might  have  described 
his  route  to  him  when  he  was  arranging  his  flight  from 
Iconium,  whereas  in  the  epistle  he  is  using  the  language  of 
polite  address.  Lystra  and  Derbe  were  cities  of  Lycaonia 
Galatica,  i.e.,  the  part  of  Lycaonia  which  was  attached  to 
the  province  Galatia,  while   Iconium  reckoned  itself  as  a 


//.    Localities  of  the  First  Journey.  45 

city  of  Phrygia  Galatica,  i.e.,  the  part  of  Phrygia  which  was 
attached  to  the  province  Galatta. 

The  account  of  Iconium  given  by  Mr.  Lewin  and  by 
Canon  Farrar  (who  is  in  perfect  agreement  with  him)  differs 
greatly  from  that  which  has  just  been  given.  The  latter 
calls  it  "  the  capital  city  of  an  independent  tetrarchy,"  says 
that  it  was  not  in  the  province  Galatia,  *  and  that  "  the 
diversity  of  political  governments  which  at  this  time  pre- 
vailed in  Asia  Minor  was  so  far  an  advantage  to  the  apostles 
that  it  rendered  them  more  able  to  escape  from  one  jurisdic- 
tion to  another."  In  so  far  as  it  concerns  antiquities,  this 
view  is  against  the  evidence  ;  f  and,  when  a  correct  map  is 
before  us,  we  see  that  Paul  did  not  use  the  frontier,  like  the 
modern  brigands  in  Turkish  Macedonia,  to  "  dodge  the 
law."  He  did  not  go  out  of  the  Roman  province,  but 
found  safety  through  the  self-government  of  the  various 
cities.  He  never  came  into  collision  with  the  Roman 
administration  on  this  first  journey,  but  only  with  the 
city  officials ;  and  the  action  of  the  magistrates  of  Antioch 
had  no  force  beyond  the  territory  that  belonged  to  the 
city. 

There  is  an  interesting  reading  in  Codex  BezcB,  xiv.  2, 
"The  archisynagogoi  of  the  Jews  and  the  rulers  of  the 
synagogue    brought    persecution    against    them    Kara   twv 

•  I  find  that  this  error  is  widespread.  Dr.  Salmon,  Introduction  to 
the  New  Testament,  1891,  Chap.  XVIII.,  p.  323,  even  employs  it  to 
get  a  proof  of  the  historical  accuracy  of  Acts.  Coins  are  extant 
struck  by  Iconium  as  a  Roman  city  from  the  time  of  Claudius 
onwards ;  and  it  was  certainly  Roman  from  B.C.  25. 

t  It  would  be  tedious  and  unsuitable  for  the  present  occasion  to 
discuss  the  evidence  ;  but  the  allusion  to  evidence  against  him  made 
by  Canon  Farrar  in  note  i,  p.  378,  is  sufficient  to  disprove  his  own 
case. 


46  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

hiKaiwv,  and  stirred  up  the  souls  of  the  Gentiles  against 
the  brethren.     And  the  Lord  quickly  gave  peace."  * 

The  officials  of  the  synagogue  are  here  clearly  distin- 
guished from  the  archisynagogoi.  The  distinction  is 
perfectly  correct,  and  makes  an  important  addition  to  our 
knowledge  of  the  administration  of  the  Jewish  synagogues 
in  Asia  Minor.f  The  carefulness  with  which  the  different 
classes  of  Jews  are  enumerated  seems  hardly  explicable 
except  on  the  supposition  that  actual  popular  tradition  is 
here  preserved.  Such  minuteness  is  not  consistent  with 
mere  expansion  of  the  text  by  a  scholiast  or  composer  of 
glosses.     The  reviser  had  something  definite  to  relate. 

The  words  KaTo.  tmv  SiKaicov,  "  against  the  just  ones,"  are 
perhaps  a  gloss  on  avroi<i ;  and  they  are  so  rendered  in  the 
Latin  version.  But  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  they  are 
used  in  a  different  and  unusual  sense,  viz.,  "  in  respect  of 
legal  proceedings,"  and  that  they  embody  a  tradition  which 
survived  in  Iconium  to  the  effect  that  Paul  was  prosecuted 
before  the  city  magistrates.  In  the  Acta  of  Paul  and 
Thekla,  the  same  tradition  is  preserved  in  a  later  and  more 
corrupt  form.  In  the  latter  place,  the  legal  proceedings 
take  place  in  the  most  absurd  and  impossible  way  before 
a  Roman  governor  and  proconsul.J  Here  the  term  is 
consistent  with,  and  even  suggests,  proceedings  before  the 
magistrates  of  the  city  ;  and  only  such  a  trial  is  possible 
in  this  case,   for  Iconium  was   not   the  residence   of  the 

*  [oi  Se  ap)(i(TVvay(jiyoi  ra>v  'lov8ai(iov  Koi  ol  ap-)(ovres  Trjs  (Tvvayayrjs 
eTTJjyayov  avrois  dieoyfiov  Kara  rav  diKaiav,  Kui]  eKdnaxrav  ras  ^Irvx^as  toov 
iOvSiv  Kara  roav  d8e\(pS>v      [6  8e  Kvpws  eScoKfV  Ta)(v  elprjvrjv^. 

t  See  Reinach,  Revue  des  Mtudes  J^uives,  vii.,  161  £f. ;  and 
below,  p.  480. 

X  The  governor  of  Galatia  was  not  a  proconsul,  but  a  legatus 
pro  prsetore 


//.    Localities  of  the  First  Journey.  47 

Roman  governor.  At  the  end  of  the  verse  the  reviser 
added  a  phrase  showing  how  the  proceedings  ended,  in 
order  to  explain  the  statement  in  the  following  verse  that 
"  they  remained  therefore  a  long  time." 

6.  Lystra. 

Lystra  is  about  six  hours  S.S.W.  from  Iconium.  The 
road  passes  for  a  mile  or  more  through  the  luxuriant  gar- 
dens of  the  suburbs,  and  then  across  the  level  plain.  It 
ascends  for  the  first  fourteen  miles  so  slightly  that  it  needs 
a  barometer  to  make  the  fact  perceptible.  Then  it  reaches 
a  range  of  hills,  which  stretch  outwards  in  a  south-easterly 
direction  from  the  mountainous  country  that  bounds  the 
vast  Lycaonian  plains  on  the  west  and  separates  them  from 
the  great  depression  in  which  are  situated  the  two  con- 
nected lakes  Karalis  and  Trogitis,  now  called  Bey  Sheher 
and  Seidi  Sheher  lakes  (the  former  the  largest  in  Asia 
Minor).  This  range  of  hills,  which  entails  a  further  ascent 
of  about  500  feet,  gradually  diminishes  in  height  as  it 
stretches  further  away  towards  the  east,  and  finally  sinks 
down  into  the  plain  about  ten  miles  away.  After  crossing 
these  hills,  the  road  descends  into  a  valley,  in  breadth  about 
a  mile,  down  the  centre  of  which  flows  a  river  *  towards  the 
south-east ;  and  on  the  southern  bank  of  the  river  about  a 
mile  from  the  place  where  the  road  leaves  the  hills,  stands 

•  This  river  is  wrongly  represented  in  every  published  map.  It 
has  had  a  considerable  course  before  it  reaches  Khatyn  Serai,  drain- 
ing a  large  part  of  the  mountain  district,  in  which  Kiepert's  latest 
maps  represent  the  water  as  flowing  westwards  to  Bey  Sheher  Lake. 
My  friend,  Professor  Sterrett,  has  erred  in  this  point  in  his  Wolfe 
Ex;pedition,  pp.  159  and  190.  The  map  in  my  Hist.  Geogr.  is  also 
wrong.  I  examined  this  point  in  1891,  but  the  map  was  complete 
before  that  time. 


4  8  5^.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

the  village  of  Khatyn  Serai,  "  The  Lady's  Mansion."  The 
name  dates  no  doubt  from  the  time  of  the  Seljuk  Sultans 
of  Roum,  when  the  village  was  an  estate  and  country  resi- 
dence of  some  sultana  from  Konia  (as  Iconium  is  now 
called).  Its  elevation,  about  3777  feet  above  the  sea  and 
427  above  Iconium,  fits  it  for  a  summer  residence.* 

This  situation  for  Lystra  was  guessed  in  1820  by  Colonel 
Leake  with  his  wonderful  instinct,  and  was  rejected  by 
succeeding  geographers.  To  Professor  Sterrett  belongs  the 
credit  of  having  solved  this  most  important  problem  by 
discovering  epigraphic  proof  that  Lystra  was  situated 
beside  Khatyn  Serai. 

A  little  personal  reminiscence,  concerning  the  greatest 
disappointment  of  my  exploring  experiences,  may  perhaps 
be  pardoned.  It  gives  some  idea  of  the  chances  of  travel, 
and  puts  in  a  stronger  relief  Professor  Sterrett's  patience 
and  skill  in  exploration,  to  which  we  owe  the  discovery  of 
the  site  of  Lystra  and  all  the  results  that  follow  from  it. 
When  I  was  travelling  in  1882  in  the  company  of  Sir 
Charles  Wilson,  we  had  set  our  hearts  on  discovering 
Lystra.  Leake's  conjecture,  confirmed  by  the  fact  that 
Hierocles  implies  Lystra  to  be  near  Iconium,  turned  our 
minds  to  Khatyn  Serai  ;  and  when  we  heard  that  it  was 
reported  to  contain  great  remains,  we  left  Iconium  with 
the  full  expectation  of  finding  Lystra  there.  But  in  the 
village  six  inscriptions  were  discovered,  four  of  which  were 
Latin.  This  preponderance  of  Latin  inscriptions  made 
me  certain  that  a  Roman  colony  must  have  been  situated 
there  ;    and   as    Lystra   was    not   a    colony,    it   must  be 

*  The  height  of  Iconium,  3350,  is  given  by  the  Ottoman  Railway 
Survey ;  that  of  Lystra  is  calculated  from  my  friend  Mr.  Headlam's 
aneroid  observations. 


//.    Localities  of  the  First  Journey.         49 

looked  for  elsewhere.  Sir  C.  Wilson  did  not  admit  my 
reasoning,  and  maintained  his  own  opinion  that  Lystra 
might  be  there.  On  the  morrow  we  rode  up  the  water  two 
hours'  distance  to  Kilisra,  and  spent  great  part  of  the  day 
examining  the  interesting  and  really  beautiful  series  of 
churches,  cut  in  the  rock,  which  prove  that  an  ancient 
monastery  (rather  than  a  town)  was  situated  there.  As  we 
returned  in  the  afternoon,  our  road  passed  near  the  ancient 
site  beside  Khatyn  Serai,  and  we  thought  of  crossing  the 
river  to  examine  it.  But  the  day  was  far  spent,  and  the 
camp  had  been  sent  to  a  village  four  hours  beyond  Khatyn 
Serai,  so  that  time  was  short.  Had  we  gone  over  *  to  the 
small  hill,  to  a  considerable  extent  artificial,  on  which  the 
ancient  city  was  built,  we  should  have  discovered  the  large 
inscribed  pedestal  on  which  the  colony  Lystra  recorded  the 
honour  which  it  paid  to  its  founder,  the  Emperor  Augustus, 
and  we  should  have  found  that  both  our  opinions  were 
right — Sir  C.  Wilson's  that  Lystra  was  situated  at  Khatyn 
Serai,  and  mine  that  a  Roman  colony  was  situated  there. 
But  at  that  time  no  evidence  was  known,  no  coin  of  Lystra 
had  been  preserved  to  prove  that  it  was  a  colony  ;  and  the 
fact  remained  unknown  till  1885,  when  Professor  Sterrett's 
exploring  instinct  guided  him  to  the  marble  pedestal.  Then 
other  evidence  came  to  light  :  M.  Waddington  possessed 
a  coin  of  the  colony  Lystra,  Dr.  Imhoof-Blumer  another, 
and  the  British  Museum  has  recently  acquired  a  third. 

The  exact  site  of  Lystra  is  on  a  hill  in  the  centre  of  the 
valley,  a  mile  north  of  the  modern  village,  and  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  river.     The  hill  rises  about  100  to  150 

*  I  must  bear  the  blame  for  this  omission.  I  had  had  fever,  and 
was  suffering  greatly  during  that  part  of  the  journey,  and  I  was 
ready  to  take  any  excuse  to  get  to  camp  an  hour  earlier. 

4 


50  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 


feet  above  the  plain,  and  the  sides  are  steep.     Few  traces 

of  ancient  buildings  remain  above   the   surface.     A  small 

ruined  church   of  no   great   antiquity   stands    in  the   low 

ground  beneath  the  hill  on  the  south-west ;  and  beside  it 

a  fountain  gushes  forth  from  beneath  a  low  arch.      This 

fountain  is  still  counted  sacred,  and  is  called  Ayasma  {i.e.^ 

cuyLa(Tfia\  a   generic    name    in    Asia    Minor    for   fountains 

visited  as  sacred  by  the  Christians.     As  Khatyn  Serai  is 

a  purely  Turkish  village,  this  fountain,  which  has  retained 

its  character  among  the  Christians  of  Iconium,  must  mark 

a  spot  which  was  peculiarly  sacred  in  ancient  Lystra. 

Situated  on  this  bold  hill,  Lystra  could  easily  be  made  a 

very  strong  fortress,  and  must  have  been  well  suited  for  its 

purpose  of  keeping  in  check  the  tribes  of  the  mountain 

districts  that  lie  west  and  south  of  it.      It  was  the  furthest 

east  of  the  fortified  cities,  which  Augustus  constructed  to 

facilitate  the  pacification  of  Pisidia  and  Isauria ;  *  and  for 

seventy  years  after  its  foundation  it  must  have  been  a  town 

of  considerable  consequence,  proud  of  its  Roman  character 

and  its  superior  rank.     As  a  Lycaonian  town  Lystra  had 

been  quite  undistinguished  ;  as  a  Roman  garrison  town  it 

was  a  bulwark  of  the  province  Galatia,  and  a  sister  city  to 

the   great   Roman  centre   at   Antioch.     A    contemporary 

memorial  of  this  pride  of  relationship  is  preserved  in  the 

following  inscription  found  in  Antiochf  on  a  pedestal  which 

once  supported  a  statue  of  Concord  : — 

"  To  the  very  brilliant  colony  of  Antioch  her  sister  the 
very  brilliant  colony  of  Lystra  did  honour  by  presenting 
the  statue  of  Concord." 

*  They  were  really  old  cities,  which  Augustus  remodelled  and 
reconstituted. 

+  Discovered  by  Professor  Sterrettin  1885  ;  recopiedby  mein  1886. 


//.   Localities  of  the  First  Journey,  51 

When  we  consider  these  facts  we  can  hardly  hesitate  to 
admit  that  St.  Paul  might  in  a  letter  address  the  church 
at  Lystra  by  the  Roman  provincial  title,  Galatians. 

Much  may  yet  be  discovered  at  Lystra,  We  should  be 
especially  glad  to  find  some  independent  proof  that  a  temple 
of  Jupiter  before  the  city  (^to?  UpoTToXeo)?)  existed  there. 
From  the  many  examples  of  such  temples  quoted  by 
the  commentators  on  Acts,  it  seems  highly  probable  that 
there  was  one  at  Lystra.  The  nearest  and  best  analogy, 
which  is  still  unpublished,  may  be  mentioned  here.  At 
Claudiopolis  of  Isauria,  a  town  in  the  mountains  south-east 
from  Lystra,  an  inscription  in  the  wall  of  the  mediaeval 
castle  records  a  dedication  to  Jupiter-before-the-town  {Ait 
npoaariw).  In  iSQoMr.  Hogarth  and  Mr,  Headlam  visited 
Lystra  along  with  me  ;  and  our  hope  was  to  fix  the 
probable  position  of  the  temple  and  perhaps  to  discover  a 
dedication  to  the  god.  In  the  latter  we  were  disappointed  ; 
but  there  is  every  probability  that  some  great  building  once 
stood  beside  the  pedestal  dedicated  to  Augustus.  This 
pedestal  stands  near  the  hill  on  the  south-east  side ;  and 
looking  from  the  hill  down  the  valley  towards  the  open 
plain,  one  cannot  fail  to  see  it  in  front  of  the  city,  and  the 
signs  of  concealed  ruins  beside  it. 

The  pedestal  of  Augustus  seems  to  be  in  its  original 
place,  and  there  is  every  probability  that  the  worship  of 
the  Imperial  founder  was  connected  with  the  chief  temple, 
and  that  the  pedestal  was  placed  in  the  sacred  precinct  of 
Zeus,  as  at  Ephesus  the  Augusteum  was  built  within  the 
sacred  precinct  of  Artemis.  The  other  possibility,  that 
the  Ayasma  marks  the  peribolos  of  Zeus  and  retains  the 
sacred  character  attaching  to  the  spot  in  pre-Christian  and 
Christian  times  alike,  is  not  so  probable. 


52  Si.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

Very  little  excavation  would  be  needed  to  verify  this 
identification,  and  probably  to  disclose  the  remains  of  the 
temple,  in  front  of  whose  gates  the  sacrifice  was  prepared 
for  the  Apostles. 

The  text  of  the  Codex  Bez(B  is  specially  remarkable  in 
the  case  of  Lystra.  In  xiv.  13,  it  preserves  a  more  accurate 
form  than  the  majority  of  MSS.  It  has  tov  6W09  Jto9 
irpo  7roX.e&)9,*  whereas  the  character  of  the  epithet  is  lost 
in  TOV  Aio<!i  TOV  ovto^  irpo  Trj<t  TroXeco?.  The  participle  in 
the  phrase  tov  ovTa  Acof  UpoTroXeoi'^  is,  as  Mr.  Armitage 
Robinson  points  out  to  me,  used  in  a  way  characteristic 
of  Acts :  it  introduces  some  technical  phrase,  or  some 
term  which  it  marks  out  as  having  a  technical  sense 
(compare  v.  17,  xiii.  i,  xxviii.  17),  and  is  almost  equivalent 
to  TOV  ovofjba^ojjbivov.  This  use  has  been  mistaken  in  the 
accepted  text,  and  01^x09  has  been  transposed,  and  the  cha- 
racter of  the  whole  phrase  lost.  The  regular  usage  of  irpb 
TToXetu?  or  IT/307r6Xe<«'?  is  immediately  before  or  after  either 
the  name  of  the  god,  or  the  word  ^eo?. 

It  seems  also  quite  probable  that  Codex  BezcB  is  more 
true  to  actual  facts  in  using  the  plural  te/oet?.  In  such  a 
sacrifice  it  would  not  be  the  priest  of  Zeus  who  brought  the 
oxen  and  the  garlands  ;  these  operations  would  be  per- 
formed by  vtinistri.  The  strictly  correct  expression  is 
that  the  priests  brought  the  victims  and  the  garlands ;  for 
all  the  inferior  officials  of  the  cultus  are  included  in  the 
generic  term  priests.  Our  theory  of  the  accuracy  of  the 
"  Travel-Document "  inclines  us  once  more  to  prefer  the 

*  It  is  difficult  to  determine  whether  this  last  word  is  to  be  taken 
as  two  words  or  one  ;  probably  it  was  felt  to  be  a  single  word.  In 
an  unpublished  inscription  of  Smyrna  the  phrase  tepeta  ttpo  TroXews  or 
npoTToXeo);  occurs. 


//.    Localities  of  the  First  Journey.  53 

text  of  Codex  BezcB.*  It  is  of  course  quite  true  that  the 
chief  priest  may  be  conceived  as  ordering  and  guiding 
the  whole  scene,  and  therefore  the  subordinate  ministers 
may  be  left  unnoticed.  But  that  is  the  historian's  point 
of  view ;  whereas  the  eye-witness,  describing  a  picture 
clear  in  his  memory,  sees  the  subordinates  playing  a  part 
quite  as  prominent  to  the  eye  as  the  chief  priest,  and  uses 
the  plural. 

But  in  addition  to  these  two  points,  the  abundance  of 
minute  and  yet  quite  suitable  details  in  this  episode  is  a 
notable  feature  in  Codex  Bezcs.  In  xiv,  7,  it  adds,  "And 
the  whole  multitude  was  moved  at  their  teaching  :  and 
Paul  and  Barnabas  abode  in  Lystra."  The  reviser  who 
added  this  (for  we  cannot  accept  it  as  original,  as  we  did 
the  two  variants  in  xiv.  13)  felt  that  something  was  wanting 
here  to  make  the  narrative  run  on  clearly  ;  but  his  addition  is 
not  successful,  and  does  not  render  the  sequence  of  thought 
perfect.  I  have  (pp.  68-9)  remarked  that  I  do  not  clearly 
comprehend  the  received  text  in  this  placcf  If  I  were 
required  to  advance  a  theory  about  the  passage,  it  would  be 
that  the  author  of  Acts,  reproducing  the  account  given 
by  Paul,  had  not  clearly  caught  the  sense  and  sequence 
of  his  narrative  ;  and  that  we  have  here  a  trace  of  the 
imperfect  medium   through  which   a  report  substantially 

*  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  be  considered  more  probable  that  the 
reviser,  whose  work  has  been  preserved  to  us  in  Codex  Bezcs,  has 
here  restored  accuracy  and  individuaUty  to  a  story  that  he  found 
badly  related  in  the  text  before  him,  this  will  only  strengthen  the 
argument  which  is  urged  in  Chap.  VIII.,  that  he  was  intimately 
acquainted  with  the  antiquities  of  Asia  Minor,  and  probably  a 
native  of  the  country. 

t  My  remark  was  actually  in  print  a  month  before  I  looked  into 
the  text  of  Codex  Bezce. 


54  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

emanating  from  Paul  himself  has  reached  us.  The  variant 
given  by  Codex  Bezce  in  xiv.  19*  is  distinctly  an  alter- 
ation made  by  a  person  who  worked  up  the  text  with 
minute  care,  and  was  offended  by  the  order  of  the  two 
city  names.  The  order  of  the  original  text  suited  the 
circumstances  of  A.D.  45,  but  not  those  of  the  second 
century,  which  alone  were  familiar  to  the  reviser.  The 
reviser  was  offended  by  the  strange  order,  and  made  what 
he  thought  an  improvement. 

Such  an  alteration  could  only  have  been  made  by  a 
person  to  whom  the  topography  was  so  familiar,  that  even 
the  slightest  deviation  from  the  natural  order  offended  him  : 
in  that  case  the  revision  must  have  been  made  in  Asia  Minor 
by  a  native  of  the  country. 

7.  Derbe. 

The  site  of  Derbe  is  not  established  on  such  certain 
evidence  as  that  of  Lystra.  The  credit  of  reaching  ap- 
proximate accuracy  about  its  situation  belongs  again  to 
Professor  Sterrett.  His  argument  was  that  "  in  reading  the 
account  [in  Acts  xiv.],  one  is  impressed  with  the  idea  that 
Derbe  cannot  be  far  from  Lystra."  f  He  therefore  placed 
Derbe  between  the  villages  Bossola  and  Zosta,  which  are 
only  about  two  miles  distant  from  each  other,  and  "the 
ruins  of  which,  being  so  near  together,  represent  one  and 
the  same  ancient  city."  But  after  visiting  the  district  in 
1890,  I  should  say  that  Bossola  is  only  a  Seljuk  khan  and 
halting-place  on  a  great  road,  and  that  the  remains  at  Zosta 
are  not  in  situ,  but  have  all  been  carried.      The  great  site 

•  "  Iconium  and  Antioch  "  in  place  of  "  Antioch  and  Iconiura." 
f  Wolfe  Expedition,  p.  2^. 


//.   Localities  of  the  First  Journey.  55 

of  this  district  is  at  Gudelissin,  three  miles  W.N.W.  from 
Zosta.  Professor  Sterrett  rightly  observes  that  "  here  a  large 
mound,  in  every  way  similar  to  the  Assyrian  Tels,  shows 
many  traces  of  an  ancient  village  or  town."  But  after 
thus  correctly  estimating  the  antiquity  of  the  site,  he 
proceeds  to  say  with  less  accuracy  that  "  most  of  the 
remains  must  be  referred  to  Christian  influence."* 

Gudelissin  is  the  only  site  in  this  district  where  a  city 
of  the  style  of  Derbe,  the  stronghold  of  "the  robber 
Antipater,"  could  be  situated.  The  remains  at  Zosta  have 
been  taken  from  it,  so  that  it  now  presents  a  bare  and 
poor  appearance  ;  but  excavation  in  the  mound,  which  is 
obviously  to  a  great  extent  artificial,  would  certainly  reveal 
many  traces  of  a  very  old  city,  of  the  style  of  Tyana 
or  Zela.  The  mound  belongs  to  that  class  which  Strabo 
entitles  "  mounds  of  Semiramis,"  and  which  are  a  sure 
sign  of  ancient  origin  and  Oriental  character.  On  this 
deserted  site  excavation  would  be  comparatively  inexpen- 
sive, the  ground  could  be  had  for  a  few  pounds,  labour  in 
those  remote  parts  costs  little,  and  no  difficulty  would  be 
experienced  with  the  excavated  soil. 

Derbe  was  the  frontier  city  of  the  Roman  province  on 
the  south-east,  and  on  this  account  a  certain  importance 
attached  to  it,  which  led  Claudius  to  remodel  its  constitu- 
tion and  to  honour  it  with  the  name  Claudio-Derbe.  Pro- 
bably this  took  place  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  reign ;  and 
the  hypothesis  may  be  hazarded  that  Iconium  was  made 
jealous  by  such  an  honour  to  another  city  of  the  Tetrarchy, 

•  The  site  must  have  been  inhabited  till  a  comparatively  recent 
time,  as  there  is  a  large  ruined  building  of  no  very  ancient  date  on 
the  upper  part  of  the  mound.  This  building  is  prominent  in  the 
photograph  which  Mr.  Hogarth  took  of  the  site 


56  SL  Pa2il  m  Asia  Minor. 

and  by  representations  at  Rome  succeeded  in  obtaining 
the  same  honour  towards  the  end  of  Claudius'  reign, 
A.D.  50-54.* 

8.  Character  of  Lycaonia  in  the  first 
Century. 

The  preceding  description  of  the  political  situation  in 
Lycaonia  in  the  first  half  of  the  first  century  shows  how 
mistaken  are  some  of  the  statements  which  are  commonly 
made  about  St.  Paul's  action  on  this  journey.  C.  H.  con- 
sider that  "  after  the  cruel  treatment  they  had  experienced 
in  the  greater  towns  on  a  frequented  route,"  the  Apostles 
retired  to  a  wilder  region,  "  into  which  the  civilisation  of  the 
conquering  and  governing  people  had  hardly  penetrated," 
viz.,  to  Lystra  and  Derbe.  We  now  see  that  Lystra  was  a 
town  of  precisely  the  opposite  character,  a  centre  and 
stronghold  for  the  "  civilisation  of  the  governing  people." 
Paul's  procedure  was  very  different  from  that  suggested  by 
C.  H.  So  far  from  going  to  the  less  civilised  parts,  he 
always  sought  out  the  great  civilised  centres.  The  towns 
which  he  visited  for  the  sake  of  preaching  were,  as  a  rule,  the 
centres  of  civilisation  and  government  in  their  respective 
districts — Ephesus,  Athens,  Corinth,  Thessalonica,  Philippi. 
He  must  have  passed  through  several  uncivilised  Pisidian 

*  The  approximate  date  is  assured  by  C.  I.  G.,  3991,  if  we  may 
assume  that  the  title  ktistes  there  applied  to  Pupius  Praesens,  pro- 
curator of  Galatia  about  53-55,  implies  that  the  remodelling  of 
Iconium  was  conducted  by  him.  The  governor  of  Galatia  about  this 
time  was  Afrinus.  A  coin  of  Claudiconium  bearing  his  portrait  and 
that  of  Claudius  is  preserved  at  Paris  in  the  national  collection, 
and  has  been  published  by  M.  Babelon  {Melanges  JSFutn.,  p.  57). 
Governors  and  procurators  regularly  held  office  for  a  number  of 
years  at  this  time.  Afrinus  was  succeeded  by  Petronius  Umber  in  54. 


//.   Localities  of  the  First  Journey.  57 

towns,  such  as  Adada  and  Misthia  and  Vasada  ;  but  nothing 
is  recorded  about  them.  He  preached,  so  far  as  we  are  in- 
formed, only  in  the  centres  of  commerce  and  of  Roman  life, 
and  among  these  ranked  Lystra  Colonia  and  Claudio- 
Derbe. 

This  point  is  one  of  peculiar  importance  in  studying  the 
effect  produced  by  the  Christian  religion  on  the  Roman 
world.  It  spread  at  first  among  the  educated  more  rapidly 
than  among  the  uneducated  ;  nowhere  had  it  a  stronger 
hold  (as  Mommsen  observes)  than  in  the  household  and  at 
the  court  of  the  emperors.  Where  Roman  organisation  and 
Greek  thought  have  gone,  there  Paul  by  preference  goes. 

Moreover  it  must  be  mentioned  that  in  the  ruder  parts 
of  Lycaonia  Paul  could  not  have  made  himself  understood. 
He  had  to  go  where  Greek  was  known  ;  and  it  is  pretty 
certain  that  at  this  time  Greek  was  known  only  in  the 
more  important  cities,  and  that  there  the  people  were 
probably  for  the  most  part  bilingual.  In  Lystra  the 
Roman  settlers  no  doubt  knew  Latin  as  well  as  Greek, 
while  the  native  inhabitants,  who  were  much  more 
numerous,  spoke  both  Greek  and  their  native  language. 
Greek  then,  and  not  Latin  or  Lycaonian,  would  be  the 
common  language  of  these  two  classes  of  the  population. 

In  reference  to  the  sacrifice  and  worship  which  were 
tendered  to  Paul  as  Hermes  and  Barnabas  as  Zeus,*  it 
would  be  quite  a  misconception  to  suppose  that  faith  in 
the  old  native  religion  was  stronger  in  Lystra  than  in  more 
civilised  towns,  as  is  implied  by  C.  H.  and  by  Canon  Farrar. 


*  True  to  the  Oriental  character,  the  Lycaonians  regarded  the 
active  and  energetic  preacher  as  the  inferior  and  the  more  silent 
and  statuesque  figure  as  the  leader  and  principal. 


58  5/.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

Where  the  Grssco-Roman  civilisation  had  established  itself, 
the  old  religion  survived  as  strongly  as  ever,  but  the  deities 
were  spoken  of  by  Greek,  or  sometimes  by  Roman,  names, 
and  were  identified  with  the  gods  of  the  more  civilised 
races.  This  is  precisely  what  we  find  at  Lystra  :  Zeus  and 
Hermes  are  the  names  of  the  deities  as  translated  into 
Greek,  but  the  old  Lycaonian  gods  are  meant  and  the 
Lycaonian  language  was  used,  apparently  because,  in  a 
moment  of  excitement,  it  rose  more  naturally  to  the  lips  of 
the  people  than  the  cultured  Greek  language.  It  is  note- 
worthy that  those  to  whose  lips  Lycaonian  rose  so  readily 
were  not  converts,  but  the  common  city  mob. 

The  commentators  aptly  compare  the  pretty  tale,  local- 
ised in  these  plains,  of  the  visit  paid  by  the  same  two  gods 
to  the  old  couple,  Philemon  and  Baucis.*  For  the  right 
understanding  of  the  story,  we  must  remember  that  in  this 
Asian  religion  Zeus  and  Hermes  are  the  embodiment  of 
two  different  aspects  of  the  ultimate  divinity,  "  the  god," 
who  was  represented  sometimes  as  Zeus,  sometimes  as 
Hermes,  sometimes  as  Apollo,  according  to  the  special 
aspect  which  was  for  the  moment  prominent. 

The  attitude  of  the  native  priests  towards  the  Christian 
missionaries  is  described  in  connection  with  the  attitude  of 
the  Ephesian  priesthood.     (See  below,  p.  144.) 


*  Philemon  and  Baucis  alone  received  the  two  gods  into  their  hut, 
when  their  Phrygian  neighbours  denied  shelter  to  the  strangers. 
The  gods  afflicted  the  countrywith  a  flood,  and  saved  only  Philemon 
and  Baucis,  whom  they  led  up  to  a  hill.  On  this  hill  a  temple  was 
built  to  Zeus,  and  Philemon  and  Baucis  became  its  guardians  :  finally 
they  died  at  the  same  moment,  and  their  spirits  passed  into  trees. 
The  reading  of  Ovid,  Metam.  VIII.,  719,  which  puts  the  scene  at 
Tyana,  is  not  certain. 


CHAPTER  III. 

ST.   PAUL'S  FIRST  JOURNEY  AS  A   NARRATIVE   OF 
TRA  VEL. 

AFTER  these  topographical  and  historical  details,  it  is 
proposed,  as  the  next  part  of  our  task,  to  go  over 
the  first  missionary  journey  as  a  plain  narrative  of  travel 
and  adventure,  and  to  show  how  the  references,  which  St. 
Paul  in  his  letter  to  the  Galatian  churches  makes  to  his 
experiences  when  he  first  preached  to  them,  work  in  with 
the  narrative  in  Acts  xiii.  and  xiv.  to  produce  a  consistent 
picture.  On  the  theory  (which  the  present  writer  is  con- 
cerned to  maintain)  that  Acts  xiii.,  xiv.  are  founded  on,  or 
even  embody,  with  some  slight  modifications  and  additions, 
a  document  written  under  the  immediate  influence  of  Paul 
himself,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  the  epistle  should 
agree  with  and  complete  the  narrative  in  Acts.  Herein 
lies  what  is  generally  counted  one  of  the  strong  points  of 
the  North-Galatian  view  :  it  is  contended  that  the  details 
of  the  visit  to  the  Galatians  mentioned  in  the  epistle  are 
inconsistent  with  the  account  of  the  journey  in  South 
Galatia  given  in  Acts  xiii.,  xiv.  If  that  be  the  case,  I  fully 
acknowledge  that  the  North-Galatian  view  must  be  adopted^ 
in  spite  of  the  numerous  difficulties  attending  it  ;  but  then, 
as  I  hope  to  show,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  account  of 
the  second  journey  in  Acts  xvi.  is  inaccurate  in  itself,  and 
written  by  one  who  had  not  access  to  a  trustworthy  account 
of  the  facts. 

S9 


6o  S^.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

Let  us  try  to  realise  the  facts  of  the  journey  and  the 
situation  of  the  Apostles.  How  were  they  guided  on  this 
particular  route  ?  At  certain  points  in  this  and  in  other 
journeys  we  are  told  what  was  the  guiding  impulse  ;  a 
vision  led  Paul  from  Asia  into  Europe  ;  the  Spirit  ordered 
him  not  to  preach  in  Asia,  and  not  even  to  enter  Bithynia. 
In  the  first  journey  they  were  sent  forth  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
"  for  the  work  whereunto  I  have  called  them  "  ;  and  Paul 
explains  in  Galatians  that  the  work  was  to  preach  among 
the  Gentiles  (i.  i6  ff.).  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
expression  in  Gal.  i.  15,  16  tallies  exactly  with  that  in 
Acts  xiii,  I,  and  that  it  would  be  appropriate  for  Paul 
to  address  to  the  churches  which  he  founded  on  his  first 
missionary  journey  an  elaborate  argument  in  favour  of  his 
special  call  to  Gentile  work.* 

It  is  not  stated  that  the  Holy  Spirit  prescribed  the  details 
of  the  route.  How  then  should  Paul  and  Barnabas  pro- 
ceed ?  To  leave  Syria  they  must  go  first  to  Seleuceia,  the 
harbour  of  Antioch,  where  they  would  find  ships  going 
south  to  the  Syrian  coast  and  Egypt,  and  west  either  by 
way  of  Cyprus  or  along  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor.  The 
western  route  led  towards  the  Roman  world,  to  which  all 
Paul's  subsequent  history  proves  that  he  considered  himself 
called  by  the  Spirit.  The  Apostles  embarked  in  a  ship  for 
Cyprus,  which  was  very  closely  connected  by  commerce 
and  general  intercourse  with  the  Syrian  coast.  After 
traversing  the  island  from  east  to  west,  they  must  go 
onward.     Ships  going  westward  naturally    went  across  to 


*  I  do  not  argue  that  it  would  be  less  appropriate  in  writing  to 
other  churches.  I  am  only  concerned  to  show  that  it  is  appropriate 
on  the  South-Galatian  theory. 


///.    5/    Paul's  First  Journey.  6i 

the  coast  of  Pamphylia,  and  the  Apostles,  after  reaching 
Paphos,  near  the  west  end  of  Cyprus,  sailed  in  one  of  these 
ships,  and  landed  at  Attalia  in  Pamphylia. 

In  the  east  a  man  with  a  day's  journey  before  him 
always  rises  early  in  the  morning ;  and  similarly  we  may 
feel  fairly  confident  that  in  view  of  this  great  expedition 
the  Apostles  started  early  in  the  year,  in  April,  when  the 
season  for  navigation  began.*  It  is  not  possible  to  allow 
less  than  two  months  in  Cyprus,  where  they  preached  in 
the  Jewish  synagogues  along  their  route.  We  must  allow 
a  certain  time  in  each  of  the  Jewish  settlements  to  enable 
the  Apostles  to  test  the  feeling  of  the  town  before  they 
proceeded  on  their  way  in  search  of  a  favourable  opening  ; 
and  yet,  if  the  document  possesses  vividness  and  direct 
accuracy,  it  is  hardly  consistent  with  the  language  to 
suppose  that  they  stayed  very  long  at  any  place.  Nothing 
of  permanent  interest  occurred  until  they  reached  Paphos  ; 
and  even  there  the  words  describing  their  experience  do 
not  suggest  any  prolonged  stay.  It  seems  then  a  fair  and 
natural  interpretation  of  the  document  to  place  their 
arrival  in  Pamphylia  in  the  latter  part  of  June.  Some 
slight  stay  at  Perga  is  implied  by  the  dissension  which 
was  caused  by  the  proposal  to  cross  Taurus  to  the  upper 
country  ;  then  they  proceeded  to  the  interior  without 
preaching  at  Perga  or  in  Pamphylia. 

We  can  hardly  suppose  that  this  was  part  of  the  original 
scheme,  for  John  Mark  was  willing  to  come  into  Pam- 
phylia with  them,  but  not  willing  to  go  on  into  the  country 
north  of  Taurus,  and  therefore  he  evidently  considered 
that  the  latter  proposal  was  a  departure  from  the  original 

•  C.  H.  adopt  this  view. 


62  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

scheme.  Cyprus  and  Pamphylia  were  countries  of  similar 
situation  to  Cilicia  and  Syria,  and  in  the  closest  possible 
relations  with  them,  whereas  it  was  a  serious  and  novel 
step  to  go  into  the  country  north  of  Taurus.  We  need  not 
therefore  suppose  that  John  Mark  was  actuated  solely  or 
mainly  by  cowardice  ;  the  facts  of  the  situation  show  that 
he  could  advance  perfectly  plausible  arguments  against  the 
change  of  plan,  which  was  to  carry  their  work  into  a  region 
new  in  character  and  not  hitherto  contemplated  by  the 
church.  It  seems  no  unwarrantable  addition,  but  a  plain 
inference  from  the  facts,  to  picture  the  dissension  as  pro- 
ceeding on  lines  like  these  ;  and  it  relieves  John  Mark 
from  a  serious  charge,  which  is  not  quite  in  keeping  with 
his  boldness  in  orginally  starting  on  this  first  of  missionary 
journeys.  What  then  was  the  motive  of  Paul  and  Barnabas 
in  taking  this  new  step  ?  Evidently  the  Spirit  did  not 
order  them,  for  we  are  precluded  from  supposing  that  John 
Mark  actually  disobeyed  the  Divine  injunction  which  he 
had  already  obeyed  in  coming  to  Cyprus  and  Pamphylia ; 
and  moreover  we  are  not  justified  in  interpolating  such 
Divine  action  in  the  narrative  without  express  warrant  in 
its  own  words.  Was  it  that  circumstances  independent  of 
their  own  will  dictated  this  change?  To  this  question 
Paul  himself  gives  the  answer.  "  Ye  know,"  he  says  to  the 
Galatians,  "that  because  of  an  infirmity  of  the  flesh  I 
preached  the  gospel  to  you  the  first  time  "  (iv.  13). 

Every  one  who  has  travelled  in  Pamphylia  knows  how 
relaxing  and  enervating  the  climate  is.  In  these  low-lying 
plains  fever  is  endemic ;  the  land  is  so  moist  as  to  be 
extraordinarily  fertile  and  most  dangerous  to  strangers. 
Confined  by  the  vast  ridges  of  Taurus,  5,000  to  9,000  feet 
high,  the   atmosphere   is  like  the  steam  of  a  kettle,  hot, 


///.    5/.  Paul's  First  Journey.  63 

moist,  and  swept  by  no  strong  winds.  Coming  down  in 
July  1890  from  the  north  side  of  Taurus  for  a  few  days  to 
the  coast  east  of  Pamphylia,  I  seemed  to  feel  my  physical 
and  mental  powers  melting  rapidly  away.  I  might  spend  a 
page  in  quoting  examples,*  but  the  following  fact  bears  so 
closely  on  our  present  purpose  that  it  must  be  mentioned. 
In  August  1890  I  met  on  the  Cilician  coast  an  English 
officer  on  his  way  home  from  three  years'  duty  in  Cyprus  : 
previously  he  had  spent  some  years  in  Eastern  service.  He 
said  that  the  climate  of  the  Cilician  coast  (which  is  very 
similar  to  that  of  Pamphylia,  and  has  not  any  worse  repu- 
tation for  unhealthiness)  reminded  him  of  Singapore  or 
Hong-kong,  while  that  of  Cyprus  was  infinitely  fresher 
and  more  invigorating. 

We  suppose  then  that  Paul  caught  fever  on  reaching 
Perga.  Here  it  may  be  objected  by  those  who  have  no 
experience  of  such  a  situation  that  Paul  was  used  to  the 
climate  of  Cilicia  and  Syria  ;  why  should  he  suffer  in  Pam- 
phylia ?  In  the  first  place,  no  one  can  count  on  immunity 
from  fever,  which  attacks  people  in  the  most  capricious 
way.  In  the  second  place,  it  was  precisely  after  fatigue  and 
hardship,  travelling  on  foot  through  Cyprus  amid  great 
excitement  and  mental  strain,  that  one  was  peculiarly  liable 
to  be  affected  by  the  sudden  plunge  into  the  enervating 
atmosphere  of  Pamphylia.  The  circumstances  implied  in 
the  epistle  are  therefore  in  perfect  keeping  with  the  nar- 
rative in  Acts  ;  each  of  the  authorities  lends  additional 
emphasis  and  meaning  to  the  other. 

A  bad  attack  of  malarial  fever,  such  as  we  suppose  to 


•  The  Rev.  Mr.  Daniell,  who  travelled  with  Spratt  and  Forbes, 
died  of  fever  at  Attalia,  a  few  miles  from  Perga. 


64  5"/.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

have  befallen  St.  Paul  in  Pamphylia,  could  not  be  described 
better  than  in  the  words  in  which  Lightfoot  (an  advocate  of 
the  North-Galatian  theory)  sums  up  the  physical  infirmity 
implied  in  the  Epistle  iv.  13-15  :  "A  return  of  his  old 
malady,  '  the  thorn  in  the  flesh,  the  messenger  of  Satan  sent 
to  buffet  him,'  some  sharp  and  violent  attack  it  would 
appear,  which  humiliated  him  and  prostrated  his  physical 
strength."  I  appeal  to  all  who  have  experience,  whether 
this  is  not  a  singularly  apt  description  of  that  fever,  which 
has  such  an  annoying  and  tormenting  habit  of  catching 
one  by  the  heel  just  in  the  most  inconvenient  moments, 
in  the  midst  of  some  great  effort,  and  on  the  eve  of 
some  serious  crisis,  when  all  one's  energies  are  specially 
needed.* 

The  treatment  for  such  an  illness  would  be  prescribed 
by  universal  consent  as  either  the  sea  or  the  high  lands  of 
the  interior.  Thus  the  remarks  which  have  been  made 
above,  page  17,  acquire  much  pertinence,  now  that  we  have 
succeeded  in  eliciting  the  probable  character  of  the  case. 
In  this  way  Paul  and  Barnabas  were  led  to  visit  the  Jewish 
settlement  of  Antioch,  and  the  evangelisation  of  the 
Galatian  churches  was  due  to  "  an  infirmity  of  the  fllesh." 

On  the  North-Galatian  theory,  I  fail  to  comprehend 
what  can  be  the  situation.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  the 
long  toilsome  journey,  involving  great  physical  and  mental 


*  I  have  not  in  the  slightest  word  or  detail  altered  my  description 
to  suit  the  case.  The  sentence  in  the  text  has  been  often  in  my 
mouth  in  describing-  what  I  have  seen;  and  the  words  "catching 
by  the  heel "  have  become  with  me  a  stock  phrase  to  describe  the 
behaviour  of  this  fever,  when  chronic.  Lightfoot's  quotation  from 
2  Cor.  xii.  7  has  no  certain  connection  with  the  present  case  ;  but  the 
connection  is  generally  admitted. 


///.    S^.  Pajd's  First  Jotirney.  65 

effort,  and  yet  voluntarily  undertaken,  should  be  described 
as  the  result  of  a  severe  illness ;  such  a  result  from  such  a 
cause  is  explicable  only  in  certain  rare  circumstances.  We 
have  seen  that  the  result  naturally  follows  from  a  Pam- 
phylian  illness.  On  the  other  hand,  I  cannot  see  any 
possible  circumstances  in  which  a  preaching  tour  in  North 
Galatia  could  be  due  to  an  illness  during  the  second 
journey.  Let  those  who  advocate  that  theory  suggest 
some  actual  facts  and  details  which  are  in  accordance  with 
the  situation  and  the  record.  But  this  is  a  point  to  which  I 
shall  return  in  Chapter  IV,,  p.  86. 

It  may  be  suggested  in  objection  to  our  theory,  that 
if  so  much  importance  attaches  to  this  illness,  a  document 
composed  under  St.  Paul's  influence  would  make  some 
reference  to  it.  In  answer,  it  might  be  sufficient  to  ask 
whether  St.  Paul's  character  would  make  us  expect  from 
him  a  formal  reference  to  his  illness.*  But  suppose  the 
reference  made,  what  is  the  result  ?  It  would  be  hardly 
possible  in  such  a  brief  account  to  speak  of  the  illness  with- 
out giving  a  worse  tone  to  the  action  of  Mark  than  it 
fairly  deserved ;  and  the  silence  preserved  in  regard  to  it 
is  perhaps  not  unconnected  with  this  fact. 

The  attack  described  in  the  letter  to  the  Galatians  need 
not  be  understood  as  lasting  long ;  that  is  not  the  character 
of  such  attacks.  But  the  journey  to  Antioch  could  not  be 
made  rapidly.  At  the  ordinary  rate  of  twenty  miles  per 
day  it  would  need  eight  days ;  but  we  must  allow  a  slower 
progress  in  this  case.  The  latter  part  of  July,  on  the  con- 
ception we  have  formed  of  the  journey,  is  the  earliest  date 

*  Compare  the  experiences  which  become  known  to  us  only  in- 
cidentally through  the  passage  2  Cor.  xi.  23  fif. 

5 


66  S^.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

when  the  Apostle  can  have  reached  Antioch  ;  and  the 
beginning  of  August  is  more  probable.  About  that  time 
the  journey  to  the  upper  country  would  be  most  im- 
peratively required  for  a  fever-struck  patient ;  whereas 
after  the  middle  of  September  a  journey  to  the  plateau 
would  no  longer  be  recommended. 

The  motives  which  might  lead  the  Jewish  strangers  to 
select  Antioch  have  been  already  described.  (Seep.  19.)  We 
suppose  Paul  and  Barnabas  to  have  arrived  there.  After 
some  days'  stay  they  turned  from  the  Jews  to  the  Gen- 
tiles. Among  them  it  is  clear  from  Acts  xiii.  48-9,  and 
Gal.  iv.  13-15,  that  Paul  was  welcomed  gladly,  was  treated 
with  extraordinary  affection,  with  kindly  solicitude  as 
an  invalid,  and  with  admiration  as  a  teacher.  These  two 
passages  fit  into  each  other  perfectly.  It  may  also  be 
noticed  that  the  hospitality  with  which  Onesiphorus  went 
out  to  meet  and  invite  Paul  to  his  house,  in  the  romance  of 
St.  Thekla,*  may  be  treated  as  implying  some  tradition 
with  regard  to  the  hearty  welcome  extended  to  the  Apostles 
in  the  whole  of  this  region. 

They  resided  in  Antioch  for  some  time.  A  certain 
interval  is  required  for  the  recorded  effect, — "  the  word 
of  the  Lord  was  spread  abroad  throughout  all  the  region." 
Two  months  is  the  minimum  that  can  be  allowed  for  such 
widespread  effect.  On  the  other  hand,  the  stay  in  Antioch 
is  not  said  to  be  "  long,"  as  is  that  in  Iconium.  We  may 
estimate  a  "  long  time  "  (Uavov  xpovov)  by  comparison  with 
Paul's  later  journeys.  He  stayed  "  a  long  time  "  (iKava^ 
r]iiepa<i,  xviii.  18)  at  Corinth  after  the  trial  before  Gallio, 
and  as  we  know  that  the  whole  duration  of  his  residence 

*  See  above,  p.  31. 


///.    SL  PauVs  First  Journey.  67 

there  was  eighteen  months,  this  phrase  must  denote  some 
period  Hke  six  to  ten  months.  We  may  fairly  suppose  a 
similar  time  to  have  been  spent  at  Iconium,  let  us  say 
eight  months ;  whereas  at  Antioch  he  resided  less  than 
six  months,  and  not  less  than  two.  Moreover  if  we  may 
assume  that  the  new  magistrates  at  Antioch  came  into 
office,  according  to  the  general  Asian  fashion,*  on  Septem- 
ber 23rd,  it  is  probable  that  any  machinations  against  the 
Apostles,  would  be  directed  to  influence  not  the  retiring,  but 
the  incoming,  magistrates.  After  entering  on  office,  the 
new  magistrates  would  be  occupied  with  pressing  official 
duties  in  their  first  days  ;  and  the  middle  or  end  of  October 
is  likely  to  have  been  the  earliest  time  at  which  they  could 
attend  to  the  complaints  made  by  the  influential  classes 
against  Paul.  All  this  leads  us  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
three  or  four  days'  journey  to  Iconium  falls  in  the  latter 
part  of  October,  or  in  November,  and  that  the  whole  winter 
was  spent  in  Iconium. 

A  point  which  illustrates  and  is  illustrated  by  the 
state  of  society  in  Asia  Minor,  is  the  influence  exerted  on 
the  Apostles'  fortunes  in  Antioch  by  the  women.  The 
honours  and  influence  which  belonged  to  women  in  the 
cities  of  Asia  Minor  form  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
features  in  the  history  of  the  country.  In  all  periods  the 
evidence  runs  on  the  same  lines.  On  the  border  between 
fable  and  history  we  find  the  Amazons.  The  best  authenti- 
cated cases  of  Mutterrecht  belong  to  Asia  Minor.  Under 
the  Roman  Empire  we  find  women  magistrates,  presidents 


•  It  is,  however,  quite  possible  that  the  Roman  year  was  used  in 
the  colony,  and  that  the  magistrates  entered  on  office,  according  to 
the  Roman  fashion,  on  January  ist. 


68  S^.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

at  games,  and  loaded  with  honours.*  The  custom  of  the 
country  influenced  even  the  Jews,  who  in  at  least  one  case 
appointed  a  woman  at  Smyrna  to  the  position  of  archi- 
synagogos.f  It  would  be  strange  if  the  women  had  not 
exercised  some  influence  over  St.  Paul's  fortunes. 

The  journey  to  Iconium  was  probably  performed  in 
greater  ease  and  comfort,  perhaps  in  a  carriage.  The 
Apostles  had  now  many  friends,  and  Paul  lays  special  stress 
on  their  extraordinary  anxiety  to  give  him  anything  in 
their  power  that  could  be  of  service  to  him  %  (Gal.  iv.  1 5) ; 
this  implies  a  liberal  and  overflowing  hospitality,  and  quite 
naturally  includes  help  in  his  actual  journey,  recommenda- 
tions to  residents  at  Neapolis,  Misthia,  and  other  towns  on 
the  way,  and  the  use  of  horses  for  the  journey. 

The  hurried  flight  from  Iconium  to  Lystra,  according  to 
our  reckoning,  took  place  about  June.  It  is  difficult  to  find 
an  indication  of  time  in  the  following  part  of  the  narrative. 
It  seems  to  be  implied  (xiv.  6)  that  the  Apostles'  residence 
in  this  district  was  not  confined  to  a  certain  time  in  Lystra, 
and  then  a  certain  time  in  Derbe,  but  that  they  made 
some  excursions,  and  remained  in  the  district  engaged 
in  missionary  work.  I  must,  however,  confess  that  the 
language    here   is   vague,   and    I    do   not    comprehend   it 

*  Examples  have  been  collected  with  much  diligence  by  M.  Paris 
in  his  treatise,  Quatenus  femtnce  in  Asia  Mino7'e  res  publicas 
attigerint ;  but  the  conclusions  which  he  draws  appear  to  me 
unsatisfactory,  and  the  tone  of  the  writer  is  rather  flippant  and 
unpleasant. 

t  See  Neubauer  in  Studia  Biblica,  i.,  p.  70 ;  Reinach  in  Revue 
des  Etudes  Juives,  vii.,  p.  161. 

X  Mere  attention  to  Paul  in  sickness  is  not  enough  to  explain  the 
words  in  Gal.  iv.  15  ;  the  actual  giving  or  offering  of  their  own  valued 
possessions  is  necessarily  included. 


///.    5/.  Paul's  First  Journey.  69 

clearly.*  During  the  heat  of  summer  this  country  district 
would  be  much  cooler  and  pleasanter  than  the  city  of 
Iconium,  though  even  there  the  heat  is  not  excessive,  and 
the  suburban  gardens  are  agreeable. 

During  this  residence  in  the  Tsaurian  hill  country,  certain 
Jews  came  to  Lystra  from  Antioch  and  Iconium.  If  we 
may  judge  from  modern  experience;  these  Jews  were  traders 
of  the  class  of  brokers  or  middle-men,  who  were  speculating 
in  the  approaching  harvest,  and  came  to  look  after  their 
business.  Greeks  and  Armenians  play  among  the  primitive 
natives  at  the  present  day  exactly  the  part  which  I  attribute 
to  the  Jews  in  the  first  century,  buying  up  the  grain  and 
other  produce  from  the  agricultural  population,  and  export- 
ing it  to  harbours  on  the  south  coast,  or  selling  it  in  retail 
trade  in  the  cities.f  If  this  supposition  is  correct,  August 
is  a  very  likely  month  for  their  coming  to  Lystra,  and  the 
stoning  of  Paul  would  come  some  weeks  later.  The  two 
days'  journey  to  Derbe  J  would  then  fall  perhaps  as  late  as 
September.  Three  months  is  no  exaggerated  allowance 
for  the  effect  produced  at  Derbe,  "  making  many  disciples." 
That  brings  us  at  least  to  the  end  of  November.  After  that 
season  the  passes  over  Taurus  are  liable  to  be  blocked  by 
snow,  and  are  at  best  very  trying  and  difficult  to  cross. 
What,  then,  were  the  Apostles  to  do  ?     The  journey  across 

*  In  the  country  round  about,  among  the  Isaurian  hills,  it  is  highly 
improbable  that  the  Apostles  could  speak  to  the  rustic  population, 
who  were,  it  is  practically  certain,  ignorant  of  Greek  till  a  far  later 
date. 

t  The  tithes  were  no  doubt  also  farmed  by  speculators,  as  at  present 
in  some  districts.  Some  of  these  visitors  might  be  agents  of  the 
company  of  speculators. 

X  The  distance  is  about  ten  or  eleven  hours,  and  might  be  done  in 
one  day  with  an  early  start. 


70  S^.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

Taurus  was  described  to  them  as  impossible.  They  were  at 
the  extremest  limit  of  Roman  territory,  and  could  not  go 
further  forward  to  preach,  except  by  entering  the  kingdom 
of  Antiochus.  Now  it  is  not  a  too  fanciful  idea  that  St. 
Paul  may  already  have  begun  to  realise  the  great  concep- 
tion (which  he  certainly  realised  afterwards)  of  Christianity 
as  the  religion  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  was  already  con- 
firmed in  his  preference  for  centres  of  Roman  life  and 
influence.  In  this  situation  the  Apostles  resolved  to  return 
by  the  way  they  had  come,  and  to  take  the  opportunity  of 
organising  the  administration  of  the  newly  founded  com- 
munities, all  of  which  they  had  been  obliged  to  leave  quite 
suddenly. 

The  Apostles  had  been  expelled,  or  had  fled  in  danger  of 
their  lives,  from  Antioch,  Iconium,  and  Lystra  ;  and  it  is 
clear  that  the  riotous  action  of  the  populace  had  been  con- 
nived at,  or  even  encouraged,  by  the  magistrates.  How 
then  could  they  venture  to  re-enter  the  cities  against  the 
authority  of  the  magistrates  ? 

The  question  touches  on  a  branch  of  ancient  law — viz., 
the  powers  and  rights  of  the  magistrates  in  such  provincial 
cities — which  is  so  obscure  that  we  cannot  answer  it  with 
certainty  or  confidence,  but  can  only  indicate  some  proba- 
bilities. It  is  worth  notice  that  the  magistrates  of  Antioch 
seem  to  have  taken  a  more  decided  action  than  those  of 
Iconium  or  Lystra.  Antioch  was  a  Roman  colony  and  an 
administrative  centre  ;  and  it  is  quite  natural  that  its 
magistrates  should  be  of  higher  rank,  and  should  venture 
on  bolder  action. 

We  may  take  it  for  granted  that  Roman  law  and  custom 
prevailed  in  the  Roman  colonies,  Antioch  and  Lystra ;  and 
in  all  probability  they  exercised   great   influence  even  in 


///.    SL  Paul's  First  Journey.  7 1 

Iconium.  We  may  then  understand  that  the  magistrates 
could  not  permanently  banish  any  person  from  the  city  ; 
but  that,  in  the  exercise  of  their  powers  for  the  preservation 
of  peace  and  order,  they  could  go  to  very  great  lengths  in 
the  way  of  summary  punishment  against  any  individuals 
whose  action  or  presence  was  inconsistent  with  peace  and 
order.  They  could  turn  them  out  of  the  city  (though  not 
permanently  exile  them),  they  could  tear  their  clothes, 
inflict  personal  indignities  on  them,  or  beat  them  (unless 
they  were  Roman  citizens).  But  the  punishments  which 
they  inflicted  caused  no  permanent  disability,  except  in  so 
far  as  the  mere  physical  effect  might  be  indelible  ;  they 
could  not  pass  sentence  of  death  or  of  exile.  The  person 
who  was  turned  out  of  the  city  might  return  after  a  little  ; 
but  of  course  he  would  be  wise  not  to  return  so  long  as  the 
magistrate  who  ejected  him  remained  in  office. 

But  though  the  magistrates  could  not  punish  a  culprit 
with  death,  "  a  regrettable  incident,"  such  as  a  popular  riot, 
might  occasionally  occur,  leading  to  the  death  of  an  ob- 
noxious individual,  and  mildly  blamed  in  public  by  the 
magistrates,  who  privately  rejoiced  at  it.  Hence  in  Iconium 
and  Lystra  we  may  be  pretty  sure  that  the  magistrates 
connived  at  the  stoning  intended  in  the  one  case,  and 
effected  in  the  other  ;  but  it  was  only  by  such  irregular 
proceedings  that  the  death  of  the  missionaries  could  be 
compassed.     The  magistrates  could  take  no  overt  action. 

It  would  appear  then  that  Paul  and  Barnabas  had  been 
brought  before  the  magistrates  of  Antioch,  but  not  of 
Iconium  or  of  Lystra.  But  even  in  Antioch  the  orders  of 
the  magistrates  inflicted  on  them  no  permanent  disability, 
and  in  Lystra  they  had  been  the  victims  of  illegal  conduct 
so  extreme  that  they  had  acquired  a  strong  legal  position. 


72  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

They  were  legally  free  also  to  return  to  Iconium  and 
Antioch,  but  in  common  prudence  they  would  hardly  re- 
turn until  new  magistrates  came  into  office.  Now,  according 
to  the  account  of  the  journey  which  has  just  been  given,  it 
appears  that  new  magistrates  had  already  been  appointed 
in  all  three  towns.* 

The  rest  of  the  winter  then  was  spent  in  Lystra,  Iconium, 
and  Antioch.  The  magistrates  and  the  Jews  are  not 
again  referred  to  ;  it  is  probable  that  the  Apostles'  freedom 
from  interference  was  gained  by  their  refraining  from  such 
open  preaching  as  before,  while  they  devoted  themselves  to 
organising  some  kind  of  self-government  in  the  congrega- 
tions. Some  years  later,  we  know  that  Paul  could  direct 
the  Galatian  churches  to  make  weekly  contributions  for  the 
benefit  of  the  poor  at  Jerusalem  ;  and  this  implies  officials 
and  a  system  of  administration.  It  was  not  before  the 
middle  of  May  in  the  following  year  that  the  Apostles  could 
venture  to  cross  the  Pisidian  mountains.  They  perhaps 
spent  June  in  Perga,  and  in  July,  after  an  absence  of  two 
years  and  four  months,  they  may  have  reached  the  Syrian 
Antioch  once  more. 

It  will  strike  every  reader  that  the  estimates  of  time 
given  in  the  preceding  sketch  of  the  Apostle's  journeys  are 
the  lowest  possible  in  view  of  the  effects  produced.  A 
certain  amount  of  time  is  necessary  in  order  that  two 
unknown  strangers  should  first  gain  a  hearing,  and  then 
make  many  converts  and  establish  a  permanent  congrega- 


*  Unless  the  magistrates  in  the  colony  of  Lystra  entered  office  on 
January  ist.  But  Lystra  was  the  town  in  which  St.  Paul's  legal 
position  was  strongest.  A  Roman  citizen,  violently  assaulted  by  the 
populace,  had  a  very  strong  case. 


///.    5/.  Paxil's  First  Journey.  73 

tion  in  a  city  where  the  estabh'shed  religion  was  so  opposite 
in  character  to  that  which  they  preached.  Many  may 
think  that  our  estimates  err  by  being  too  short ;  and  it  is 
quite  possible  that  they  ought  to  be  lengthened.  Probably 
hardly  any  one  will  consider  that  they  are  too  long. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE  SECOND  JOURNEY, 

ST.  PAUL'S  second  journey  took  place  some  years  later 
than  the  first  The  intermediate  period  he  had  spent 
chiefly  in  Antioch,  but  partly  in  a  journey  to  Jerusalem.* 
He  had  now  old  friends  in  South  Galatia  to  visit,  and  he 
went  in  the  first  place  straight  to  them.  Accompanied  by 
Silas,  he  passed  through  Cilicia,  crossed  Taurus  no  doubt 
by  the  Cilician  Gates,  and  came  first  to  Derbe,  and  then 
to  Lystra,  where  he  found  a  disciple  named  Timothy,  son 
of  a  Jewess  by  a  Greek  father.  He  resolved  to  take 
Timothy  with  him,  and  in  order  to  conciliate  the  pre- 
judices of  the  Jews,  who  were  numerous  in  these  regions, 

*  It  was  probably  not  less  than  a  year  after  the  Apostles  had 
returned  when  they  started  for  Jerusalem  ;  the  expression  xpo^o" 
ovK  oXiyov  is  an  emphatic  expression,  which  may  quite  well  denote 
an  even  longer  period.  Mr.  Lewin,  in  his  singularly  useful  work, 
Fasti  Sacri,  p.  288,  No.  1722,  argues  from  the  fact  that  "Paul 
and  Barnabas  related  the  conversion  of  the  Gentiles"  during  their 
journey  to  Jerusalem,  that  no  very  long  interval  had  elapsed  since 
their  return  from  their  journey  in  Asia  Minor,  "  as  otherwise  their 
success  among  the  Gentiles  would  have  been  sufficiently  well 
known."  This  argument  is  incorrect.  They  are  not  said  to  give 
the  first  news  ;  it  is  rather  implied  by  the  word  selected  (e/cSir/yoO/iewi) 
that  the  communities  on  their  way  had  already  heard  of  the  fact 
generally,  and  took  the  opportunity  of  learning  the  full  details  from 
the  missionaries.  After  they  returned  from  Jerusalem,  a  consider- 
able stay  in  Antioch  is  again  implied. 

74 


IV.    The  Second  Journey.  75 

he  performed  on  him  that  operation  which  the  Hebrew 
rehgion  required  in  the  case  of  all  males.  This  can  hardly 
have  been  done  merely  for  the  sake  of  the  Jews  in  Lystra, 
Iconium,  and  Antioch,  whom  Paul  already  knew  to  be 
hostile  to  him.  It  implies  that  he  had  the  intention  of 
preaching  in  other  towns  where  Jews  lived,  through 
whom  he  would  as  usual  make  a  beginning.  As  we 
shall  see,  he  was  evidently  thinking  of  going  on  westward 
into  the  province  Asia. 

The  passage  xvi.  4-6  is  one  of  extreme  obscurity ; 
but  it  must  be  examined,  for  the  decision  of  the  contro- 
versy as  to  the  signification  of  the  term  Galatia  depends 
on  the  meaning  to  be  taken  out  of  it.  It  appears  that 
Paul,  after  leaving  Lystra  with  Silas  and  Timothy,  spent 
some  time  in  the  country,  for  it  is  clearly  implied  in 
verses  4  and  5,  that  they  taught  and  preached  in  "  the 
cities "  on  their  route.  We  may  then  conclude  that  they 
visited  those  cities  of  the  district  where  Paul  had  so  many 
friends  and  converts,  Iconium  and  Antioch  ;  and  it  was 
in  all  probability  while  they  were  in  Antioch  that  they 
were  "forbidden  of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  speak  the  word 
in  Asia."  The  prohibition  implies  a  previous  intention 
on  their  part,  by  which  Paul's  action  hitherto  had  been 
guided. 

When  their  first  plan  was  thus  altered,  they  turned 
northwards,  with  the  intention  of  entering  Bithynia,  pre- 
suming that  they  would  be  allowed  to  preach  there.  But 
when  they  came  opposite   Mysia,*  and  tried   to  continue 

*  I  understand  Acara  here  in  the  sense  which  it  has,  e.g.,  in 
Acts  xxvii.  7,  (cara  Ki/i'6oj/,  or  in  Herodotus  I.  76,  Kaza  2iva}nrji^ — "  when 
they  reached  such  a  point  that  a  hne  drawn  across  the  country  at 
right  angles  to  the  general  line  of  their  route  would  touch  Mysia." 


76  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

their  northward  route  into  Bithynia,  "  the  Spirit  of  Jesus 
suffered  them  not."  They  were  compelled  to  turn  west- 
wards ;  and  keeping  along  the  southern  frontier  of  Mysia, 
they  reached  Troas,  whence  they  sailed  to  Macedonia. 

The  language  of  this  passage  clearly  implies  that  they 
were  forbidden  to  preach,  but  not  to  travel  in  Asia ; 
whereas  they  were  forbidden  even  to  set  foot  in  Bithynia. 
Accordingly,  when  they  found  about  Antioch  that  they 
must  not  preach  in  Asia,  they  went  straight  north  through 
the  Phrygian  parts  of  Asia,  intending  to  preach  as  soon  as 
they  reached  Bithynia  ;  but  of  course  they  understood  that 
the  Phrygian  country  which  they  crossed  was  part  of  Asia, 
and  forbidden  to  them  for  preaching.* 

This  interpretation  gives  a  definite  picture  of  a  probable 
route,  which  lies  fairly  in  the  words.  I  can  find  no  such 
picture  in  any  of  the  other  interpretations  that  have 
been  advanced,  and  I  do  not  see  any  other  satisfactory 
possibility.  There  are  two  difficulties  in  the  interpretation. 
First,  we  have  to  take  certain  terms  in  the  Roman  sense, 

In  the  passage  of  Herodotus  this  implies  a  line  from  north  to  south  ; 
here  it  implies  a  line  from  east  to  west,  Wendt  understands  "to 
the  border  of  Mysia."  This  would  come  to  nearly  the  same  result, 
taking  Mysia  in  the  wide  sense  which  it  has  in  Ptolemy  and  which 
is  mentioned  in  Strabo  as  common.  I  should  suppose  that  about 
Nakoleia  they  found  that  their  northward  route  was  prevented ; 
Wendt's  view  would  involve  that  they  realised  this  somewhere  near 
Kotiaion.  They  had  two  roads  possible  from  Antioch  into  Bithynia, 
one  by  Nakoleia  and  Dorylaion,  which  is  the  shortest  and  was  by 
far  the  most  important  at  that  time,  the  other  by  Kotiaion. 

*  Lewin,  St.  Paul,  p.  193,  not  observing  that  Phrygia  is  a 
part  of  Asia,  supposes  that  they  went  at  this  time  to  Colossae  and 
preached  there.  Such  a  route  to  Bithynia  is  impossible  except 
with  the  wrong  conception  Mr.  Lewin  has  of  the  topography  of  the 
country ;  and  Colossas  was  a  city  of  Asia,  and  forbidden  to  them. 


IV.    The  Second  Journey.  'jj 

and  not  in  the  popular  sense  which  is  certainly  found  in 
the  early  chapters  of  Acts.  Our  fundamental  hypothesis 
of  the  "  Travel-Document "  is  intended  to  meet  this  diflfi- 
culty ;  and  we  have  found  that  hypothesis  confirmed  by 
the  signs  of  first-hand  acquaintance  with  the  country  which 
appear  in  chapters  xiii.  and  xiv.  The  writer  retains  the 
precise  words  of  his  authority  in  xvi.  6  and  7,  and  this 
authority  was  a  document  written,  whether  by  himself  at  an 
earlier  time  or  by  some  other  person,  under  the  immediate 
influence  of  St.  Paul  himself.* 

Then  the  second  difficulty,  which  lies  in  the  relation 
of  verse  6  to  4  and  5,  finds  an  easy  solution.  "  They 
passed  through  the  Phrygian  and  Galatic  country " 
is  a  geographical  recapitulation  of  the  journey  which  is 
implied  in  verses  4,  5.  These  two  verses  describe  the 
conduct  and  action  that  characterised  the  entire  journey 
through  South  Galatia,  both  the  journey  to  Lystra  and 
Derbe,  already  mentioned  from  the  geographical  point 
of  view  in  verse  i,  and  that  to  Iconium  and  Antioch. 
Verse  6  then  continues  the  geographical  description  from 
verse  i,  and  describes  the  journey  from  Lystra  onwards  ;  f 
it    led    through    "the    country   which    is    Phrygian    and 

•  It  was  at  this  point  that  the  idea  which  is  worked  out  in  the 
first  four  chapters  of  this  work  was  first  conceived — viz.,  that  great 
part  of  Acts  xiii.  ff.  was  composed  under  Paul's  immediate  influence. 

t  There  is  much  to  be  said  in  favour  of  Wendt's  view,  that 
verses  4  and  5  are  an  addition  made  to  the  original  document 
by  the  author  of  Acts,  who  incorporated  in  his  work  the  original 
document.  The  preceding  exposition  might  have  been  made  clearer 
by  assuming  this  view ;  but  I  have  preferred  throughout  these 
chapters  to  start  from  the  received  text,  though  1  feel  confident  that 
there  has  been  a  good  deal  of  editing  and  contamination  in  the  text 
as  we  have  it. 


78  St.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

Galatic,"  a  single  district  to  which  both  adjectives  apply. 
Lightfoot  has  correctly  seen  that  this  is  the  only  possible 
sense  of  the  Greek  words  as  they  are  now  read.*  The 
description  applies  to  the  country  round  Iconium  and 
Antioch  ;  to  make  quite  clear  in  brief  terms  what  country 
he  meant,  the  writer  of  the  original  document  said  "the 
country  which  according  to  one  way  of  speaking  is 
Phrygian,  but  which  is  also  called  Galatic."  The  pre- 
ceding account  of  the  country  about  Iconium  and  Antioch 
has  shown  how  strictly  true  the  description  is,  and  how 
perfectly  it  agrees  with  the  expression  used  in  Acts  xiv.  6, 
which  puts  the  boundary  of  the  Phrygian  land  between 
Iconium  and  Lystra. 

Lightfoot,  on  the  other  hand,  considers  that  "  the  Phrygian 
and  Galatic  country "  is  Galatia  in  the  narrow  sense,  the 
land  occupied  by  the  Gaulish  settlers  during  the  third 
century  before  Christ,  which  previously  had  been  part  of 
Phrygia.  It  seems  to  me  inconceivable  and  contrary  to  the 
evidence,  either  that  the  name  Phrygia  should  have  re- 
mained in  popular  use  to  denote  the  country  of  the  Asiatic 
Gauls  till   the  time  when  Acts  was  written,!  or  that  the 

*  Tr)v  ^pvyiav  Koi  TaXaTiKfjv  x^pa"*  SO  Tischendorf,  Westcott  and 
Hort,  Wendt,  and  almost  all  modem  critics.  But  Wendt,  though 
he  accepts  the  text,  gives  a  translation  which  results  naturally  from 
the  old  text,  but  which  cannot  be  got  from  the  text  which  he  approves 
of.  His  Tendering  is  P/iry£t'en  und  das  gala^tscke  Zand.  Lipsius, 
in  Holtzmann's  Ha?id-Ko?nfnentar ,  II.  ii.  2,  is  the  only  modem 
critic  known  to  me  who  quotes  the  text  as  Ti\v  YaKaTiKr]v  ;  this  is 
probably  only  an  inaccuracy  in  quotation,  and  does  not  indicate  a 
difference  of  judgment  as  to  the  text,  which  is  determined  by  the 
manuscripts. 

t  Lipsius  regularly  speaks  of  North  Galatia  as  der  Galatiais. 
This  name  has  no  authority,  and  is  a  mere  fiction  founded  on  his 
misunderstanding  of  tijv  VaKariKriv  x<^pav  ;  but  it  might  suggest  to  the 


IV.    The  Second  Jozirney.  79 

author  should  indulge  in  a  displayof  pedantic  antiquarianism, 
suitable  for  Strabo's  learned  work,  but  utterly  incongruous 
here.  To  make  possible  the  reference  to  North  Galatia 
which  Lightfoot  and  most  commentators  seek  to  derive 
from  this  passage,  it  is  necessary  to  go  back  to  the  discarded 
reading  rrjv  €>pv<yiav  Koi  ti)v  Ta\aTi,Kr)v  ■)((i)pav,  and  it  is  note- 
worthy that,  as  we  have  seen,  Wendt  translates  this  text  in 
his  commentary,  though  he  rejects  it  in  his  critical  notes. 

The  objection  may  be  made  that  I  am  inconsistent  in 
refusing  to  admit  the  possibility  that  North  Galatia  could 
retain  in  popular  language  in  the  first  century  after  Christ 
the  ancient  name  of  Phrygia,  whereas  I  have  argued  *  that 
Iconium  continued  to  be  counted  Phrygian  by  its  in- 
habitants at  least  as  late  as  the  second  century.  But  the 
cases  are  quite  different.  In  Iconium  the  old  Phrygian 
population  continued  to  call  themselves  Phrygian,  and 
probably  in  part  retained  the  use  of  the  Phrygian  language 
alongside  of  Greek.  But  in  Galatia  the  population  had 
changed  ;  the  Galatai  had  conquered  the  country,  and  so 
far  from  wishing  to  retain  the  name  Phrygian,  they  would 
have  treated  it  as  an  insult  to  be  called  Phrygians.  General 
popular  usage  throughout  Asia  Minor  had  long  ago  ceased 
to  apply  the  name  Phrygia  either  to  Iconium  or  to  Galatia, 
though  antiquaries  and  historians  recognised  that  North 
Galatia  was  originally  part  of  Phrygia. 

There  can,  I  believe,  be  no  doubt  what  country  was 
denoted   by  these  words,  which  may  in  English  be  most 

unwaiy   reader  that   his   translation    agrees    with    ancient  usage. 
Paul  heard  the  term  Galaticus  in  Iconium,  where  it  was  in  use  at 
the  time  to  denote  the  province  (p.  14,  and  C.  I.  G.  3991).     Later, 
the  word  changed  its  meaning  (p.  95). 
•  See  above,  pp.  37-9. 


8o  5/.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

idiomatically  rendered  "the  Phrygo-Galatic  territory. 
Abundant  analogy  may  be  quoted  to  show  that  this  phrase 
was  natural  and  common  in  the  first  century,  and  that  it 
was  the  most  clear  and  complete  and  precise  description 
which  a  writer  who  was  striving  after  accuracy  could  select. 
As  this  point  is  a  decisive  one,  and  is  independent  of  any 
theory  as  to  the  composition  of  Acts,*  it  deserves  closer 
examination. 

The  district  is  not  called  Galatia,  but  17  TcCKamKi)  xoj/ja, 
i.e.,  a  district  which  was  connected  with  Galatia  or  included 
in  Galatia,  but  which  the  writer  for  some  reason  or  other 
does  not  choose  to  designate  by  the  term  Galatia.  The 
adjective  Galaticus  is  actually  employed  elsewhere  as  a  geo- 
graphical term.  The  term  Pontus  Galaticus  f  was  already 
in  use  during  the  first  century  after  Christ  to  denote  a  large 
district  of  Pontus  which  was  added  to  the  province  of 
Galatia  a  few  years  B.C.  The  natural  sense  of  the  Greek 
words,  confirmed  by  this  analogy,  is  decisive  as  to  the 
sense  of  TaXwrLKT]  %&)'pa.  Now  let  us  turn  to  the  Roman 
documents  of  the  first  century,  describing  the  extent 
of  the  authority  exercised  by  the  governor  of  Galatia. 
In  some  inscriptions  he  is  called  simply  the  governor  of 
Galatia,  while  in  others  he  is  styled  governor  of  Galatia, 
Pisidia,  Phrygia,  Lycaonia,  Isauria,  Pontus  Galaticus,  etc. 


•  It  is  the  argument  which  first  led  me  definitely  to  abandon  my 
earlier  belief  that  the  Epistle  was  addressed  to  the  North  Galatians. 
Arrian,  An.  2,  4,  i,  uses  Galaticus  in  its  natural  and  strict  sense. 

t  The  origin  of  the  term  is  discussed  in  Hist.  Geogr.,  p.  253. 
In  literature  it  is  used  only  by  Ptolemy  but  must  be  older,  for  it 
had  ceased  to  be  true  in  his  time.  It  is  employed  in  inscriptions 
of  the  first  century,  e.g.  C.I.L.,  III.,  Suppl.,  no.  6818,  which  belongs 
to  the  years  73-78. 


IV.    The  Second  Journey.  8i 

The  district  here  denominated  Phrygia  is  that  which  in- 
cludes Iconium,  Antioch,  and  Apollonia,*  and  which  might, 
during  the  first  century,  in  perfect  accordance  with 
analogy,  be  called  by  such  names  as  Phrygia  Galatica,  or 
r)  ^piTfia  Kal  TaXartKri  ^oopa.'l  This  statement  of  actual 
facts,  as  recorded  in  contemporary  documents,  seems  to 
be  in  itself  a  conclusive  and  sufficient  proof  of  the  meaning 
of  the  phrase  used  in  Acts  xvi.  6 ;  and  this  interpretation 
proves  that  the  route  described  in  Acts  xvi.  did  not  touch 
North  Galatia  at  any  point.  But  as  the  theory  that 
the  route  passed  through  North  Galatia  is  rested  on  the 
necessity  of  accommodating  Acts  to  the  Epistle,  we  must 
examine  this  point. 

Let  us  admit  for  the  moment  the  possibility  that,  either 
by  recurring  to  the  now  discarded  reading  in  xvi.  6,  or  by 
some  other  means,  a  passage  through  North  Galatia  could 
be  made  consistent  with  the  narrative  in  Acts.  The 
question  has  then  to  be  met,  how  did  St.  Paul  come  to 
be  in  North  Galatia?  What  theory  can  be  suggested  to 
explain  his  route  and  his  plans  consistently  with  the  rest 
of  the  narrative  ?  Lightfoot  and  most  others  do  not  suggest 
any  reason,  nor  do  anything  to  introduce  coherence  into  the 
journey.  C.  H.  say  :  "  The  obvious  inference  is  that  he  was 
passing  through  Galatia  to  some  other  district  (possibly 
Pontus)."  The  inference,  whether  "  obvious "  or  not,  is 
rather  a  bold  one,  when  we  consider  how  utterly  unjustified 
it  is  by  anything  that  is  related  in  this  or  any  other  part  of 


•  See  I/2s^.  Geogr.,  p.  253. 

t  Phrygia  Galatica  on  the  analogy  of  Pontus  Galaticus  or  of 
Ptolemy's  Phrygia  Pisidia — i.e.,  Pisidian  Phrygia,  the  part  of  Phrygia 
reckoned  along  with  Pisidia — (compare  Antiochia  Pisidia). 

6 


82  St.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

the  Acts  about  Paul's  travels  or  his  aims.  The  idea  of  a 
proposed  visit  to  Pontus  must  be  rejected.  But  another 
account  might  be  suggested  as  in  better  agreement  with  the 
record.  We  may  suppose  that  Paul,  after  leaving  Lystra, 
went  on  through  Iconium  to  Antioch.  There  he  was  for- 
bidden to  preach  in  Asia.  He  then  went  across  the  continent 
toward  the  north  with  the  intention  of  preaching  in  the 
extreme  eastern  parts  of  Bithynia,  Amastris  and  the  sur- 
rounding districts.  The  direct  road  to  Amastris  went  by  way 
of  Ancyra,  the  capital  of  North  Galatia.  Here  or  at  some 
other  point  in  his  journey  he  was  detained  by  illness.  He 
postponed  his  journey  to  Bithynia,  and  proceeded  to  preach 
in  Galatia.  Lightfoot  names  Ancyra,  JuHopolis,*  Tavium, 
and  Pessinus  as  probably  the  earliest  Galatian  churches 
in  this  district.f  Thereafter  he  proceeded  on  his  way  to 
Bithynia,  and  when  he  came  "over  against  Mysia"  (or, 
according  to  Wendt,  "  to  the  frontier  of  Mysia  "),  he  was 
forbidden  to  enter  Bithynia,  and  passing  along  the  southern 
boundary  of  Mysia  he  reached  Troas. 

In  the  first  place  we  have  to  object  to  this  account  that 
it  does  not  suit  the  text.  From  North  Galatia  no  possible 
route  to  Bithynia  could  be  said  to  bring  a  traveller  to  a 
point  "  over  against  Mysia,"  still  less  "  to  the  frontier  of 

*  Juliopolis,  however,  was  at  this  time  a  city  of  Bithynia,  not  of 
Galatia  {Hist.  Geogr.,  p.  196). 

tWe  may  confidently  say  that  no  other  towns  (except  Colonia 
Germa)  in  North  Galatia  possessed  a  Greek-speaking  population  to 
which  St.  Paul  could  preach  ;  in  fact,  it  is  exceedingly  doubtful  if 
Tavium  could  have  contained  many  people  who  were  familiar  with 
Greek  at  this  period.  In  the  rest  of  the  country  it  seems  certain 
that  only  a  few  words  of  broken  Greek  were  known  to  the  population, 
whose  familiar  tongue  was  Celtic.  Accordieg  to  Jerome  they 
retained  their  native  language  as  late  as  the  fourth  century. 


IV.    The  Second  Journey.  83 

Mysia."  A  glance  at  a  map  (preferably  a  large  map)  of 
the  country  will  make  this  clear  to  all.  Moreover  the 
phrase  "  They  went  through  Phrygia,  etc.,  and  when  they 
came  opposite  Mysia,"  implies  a  single  definite  journey 
reaching  a  definite  point  and  there  suddenly  checked.  But 
on  the  above  interpretation,  we  have  to  interpose  between 
the  two  verbs  a  tale  of  months  of  wandering  over  Galatia. 
No  person  who  possessed  any  literary  faculty  could  write 
like  this.  Either  the  writer  of  Acts  misunderstood  the 
facts  entirely,  and  wrote  something  which  is  not  correct, 
and  which  we  must  alter  in  order  to  introduce  the  above 
interpretation  ;  or  else  his  words  definitely  exclude  the 
supposition  that  Paul  on  this  occasion  travelled  in  North 
Galatia.  If  we  cling  to  the  North-Galatian  theory,  we 
must  abandon  the  view  that  this  part  of  Acts  possesses  the 
characteristics  of  an  original,  genuine,  and  valuable  historical 
document.  But  if  we  adopt  the  South-Galatian  theory,  we 
merely  follow  the  text  of  all  modern  critics  and  translate  it 
according  to  the  meaning  which  was  common  in  documents 
of  the  time. 

Secondly,  Amastris,  in  Roman  and  in  common  usage,  was 
a  city  of  Pontus,  and  not  of  Bithynia.  Though  it  is  true 
that  both  districts  were  included  in  one  province,  yet  the 
province  was  always  called  Bithynia-Pontus  01  Bithynia  et 
Pontus. 

The  supposition  that  Amastris  was  the  object  of  St. 
Paul's  route  from  Pisidian  Antioch  is  inconsistent  with 
natural  probability  ;  Western  Bithynia  about  Nikomedeia 
and  Nikaia  was  the  district  which  would  be  naturally  inferred 
from  the  expression  "  to  go  into  Bithynia."  The  wealth  and 
the  civilisation  and  the  administration  of  Bithynia  had  their 
centre  there.    A  connection  with  Syria  and  a  Jewish  popu- 


84  ►S'^.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

lation  are  more  probable  in  Western  Bithynia.*  Amastris 
itself  was  a  civilised  city  with  a  considerable  Greek-speaking 
population,  but  the  surrounding  country  was  barbarous 
and  uncivilised  and  in  the  last  degree  unlikely  to  have 
attracted  Paul.  Moreover  a  very  difficult  and  mountainous 
country  lies  south  of  Amastris,  and  intercourse  between  it 
and  the  civilised  world  was  maintained  almost  entirely  by 
sea. 

When  the  design  of  preaching  in  Asia  was  frustrated,  it 
seems  to  have  occurred  to  St.  Paul  to  go  on  to  the  country 
immediately  beyond — viz.,  Bithynia ;  and  the  road  by 
Dorylaion  to  Nikaia  and  Nikomedeia  was  a  great  route. 
But  the  design  of  going  from  Antioch  or  from  Iconium  to 
Amastris,  without  any  thought  of  preaching  in  the  inter- 
mediate districts,  is  in  itself  utterly  improbable,  and  puts 
an  end  to  all  naturalness  and  consistency  in  the  narrative. 

Thirdly,  chronology  is  opposed  to  this  view.  The 
process  of  preaching  in  the  great  cities  of  Galatia  needed 
in  any  case  a  considerable  time  ;  an  invalid,  as  St  Paul 
is  supposed  on  the  North-Galatian  theory  to  have  been, 
would  require  a  long  time  in  that  vast  and  bare  country. 
But  the  period  allotted  on  any  of  the  proposed  systems 
of  chronology  to  this  journey,  leaves  no  room  for  such  a 
great  work  as  the  evangelisation  of  Galatia.  We  may 
safely  assume  that  Paul  left  Antioch  on  his  second 
journey  in  the  spring.  No  one  who  knows  the  Taurus  f 
will  suppose  that  he  crossed  it  before  the  middle  of  May  ; 


*  Amisos  was  the  only  city  of  Pontus  which  might  naturally  have 
close  relations  with  Syria  (see  p.  10) ;  but  it  is  unnecessary  to  argue 
that  Paul  could  not  think  of  Amisos  as  in  Bithynia. 

t  See  above,  pp.  69-70. 


IV.    The  Second  Journey.  85 

June  is  a  more  probable  time.  Say  he  passed  the  Cilician 
Gates  on  the  first  of  June.  If  we  calculate  his  journey- 
by  the  shortest  route,  allowing  no  detention  for  unforeseen 
contingencies,*  but  making  him  rest  always  on  Sabbaths, 
and  supposing  a  stay  of  two  Sundays  each  at  Derbe, 
Iconium,  and  Antioch,  and  of  at  least  five  weeks  at 
Lystra  (which  is  required  to  select  Timothy  as  comrade, 
to  perform  the  operation  on  him,  and  to  wait  his  re- 
covery), we  find  that,  even  if  he  did  not  touch  North 
Galatia,  October  would  be  begun  before  he  reached 
Philippi.f  Eleven  months  may  fairly  be  allotted  to  the 
events  recorded  at  Philippi,  Thessalonica,:]:  Beroea,  and 
Athens  ;  and  then  Paul  went  to  Corinth,  where  he  resided 
a  year  and  a  half  He  would  then  sail  for  Jerusalem  in 
the  spring.  Thus,  three  entire  years  are  required  as  the 
smallest  allowance  for  this  journey,  even  if  it  was  done 
in  the  direct  way  which  our  theory  supposes.  Among 
the    commentators,    some    assign    two    years     for    these 


•  But  such  contingencies  always  happen  and  cause  some  delay. 

t  For  mere  walking,  we  may  allow  eight  days  to  Derbe,  two 
to  Lystra,  one  to  Iconium,  four  to  Antioch,  seventeen  to  Troas  ; 
besides  a  stay  of  some  days  in  Troas.  The  shipping  season  had 
not  come  to  an  end,  so  that  winter  was  not  yet  set  in  when  he 
reached  Troas. 

X  The  three  weeks  at  Thessalonica  (Acts  xvii.  2)  must  not  be 
pressed  :  the  time  is  insufficient ;  but  I  need  not  repeat  the  reasons 
which  are  well  stated  in  the  Speaker'' s  Commentary  on  Thessa- 
lonians,  p.  711.  But  the  argument  there  used  that  Paul  could  only 
have  had  the  Sundays  for  preaching  in  Thessalonica,  because  he 
worked  with  his  hands  "night  and  day"  (i  Thess.  ii.  9),  depends 
on  a  misconception.  Paul  means  by  the  phrase  "  night  a.id  day" 
only  that  he  started  work  before  dawn  :  the  usage  is  regular  and 
frequent.  He  no  doubt  began  so  early  in  order  to  be  able  to  devote 
some  part  of  the  day  to  preaching. 


86  5/.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

events,  some  three,  hardly  any  one  allows  four.  The 
usual  systems  of  chronology  must  therefore  be  modified 
greatly,  if  the  evangelisation  of  North  Galatia  is  to  be 
interpolated  in  this  journey. 

Finally,  it  is  required  by  the  North-Galatian  theory  that 
St.  Paul,  stricken  at  Ancyra  by  the  severe  illness  already 
described  in  the  words  of  Lightfoot,  took  that  opportunity 
to  make  the  long,  fatiguing  journeys  needed  in  order  to 
preach  in  Tavium  and  Pessinus.  Those  who  know  the 
bare,  bleak  uplands  of  Galatia,  hot  and  dusty  in  summer, 
covered  with  snow  in  winter,  will  appreciate  the  improba- 
bility and  the  want  of  truth  to  nature  which  are  involved 
in  the  words,  "  because  of  an  infirmity  of  the  flesh  I 
preached  unto  you." 

The  truth  is  that  no  suggestion  ever  has  been  offered, 
and  in  view  of  the  geography  no  suggestion  can  be  offered, 
which  will  introduce  rational  coherence  into  the  narrative 
in  Acts  on  the  supposition  that  on  this  journey  St.  Paul 
evangelised  in  Northern  Galatia.  If  that  be  the  case,  the 
narrative  in  Acts  is  so  confused,  so  self-contradictory,  and 
so  unintelligible,  that  it  cannot  be  written  by  one  who  had 
access  to  good  authorities  or  who  had  any  opportunity  of 
acquiring  knowledge  of  the  facts.  The  most  charitable 
account  of  the  writer  would  be  that  he  had  no  exact 
record  about  the  first  journey  made  by  Paul  into  Galatia  ; 
but  he  inferred  from  the  Epistle  that  two  such  journeys 
had  been  made,  and  mentioned  the  first  in  a  rather 
incoherent  way  at  this  point  in  his  narrative.  In  some 
way  or  other  all  particulars  of  the  first  Galatian  journey 
had  disappeared,  and  the  author  of  Acts  had  to  dismiss 
it  with  a  word.  How  inconsistent  is  this  supposition 
with   the   life-like  narration    in  other  parts  of  St.  Paul's 


IV.    The  Second  J otirney,  87 

journeys !  How  should  the  same  writer  be  so  well 
informed  about  the  other  journeys  in  Asia  Minor,  Greece, 
and  Italy,  while  this  one  was  as  unknown  to  him  as  the 
Arabian  journey  ?  * 

On  the  South  Galatian  theory,  however,  I  hope  that  the 
preceding  discussion  has  shown  in  detail  the  perfect 
coherence  of  the  narrative  throughout  the  first  and  second 
journeys,  and  its  agreement  with  the  allusions  in  the  epistle, 
and  has  proved  that  the  combination  of  Acts  and  the 
epistle  produces  a  complete,  natural,  harmonious,  and 
intrinsically  probable  picture. 

In  Codex  Bezce  the  various  readings  in  the  description 
of  the  second  journey,  though  not  of  very  striking  cha- 
racter, are  not  devoid  of  interest.  The  addition  to 
XV.  41  t  is  derived  from  xvi.  4 ;  it  brings  out  clearly  (what 
is  certainly  implied  in  the  received  text)  that  the  delivery 
of  the  decrees  to  the  churches,  which  is  described  in  xvi.  4, 
and  the  confirmation  of  the  churches  in  xv.  41,  are  both 
intended  to  apply  to  all  the  churches  visited.  The  clause 
inserted  at  the  beginning  of  xvi.}  makes  the  geographical 
description  clearer  and  more  precise,  but  does  not  make  any 
material  addition  to  the  sense.  It  is,  however,  important 
in  its  bearing  on  a  later  verse,  xvi.  6,  to  the  opening 
words  of  which  it  is  obviously  parallel.  It  sums  up  the 
description  of  the  visit  to  Syria  and  Cilicia  given  in 
the   preceding   verse.     Several    other   additions   belong  to 

•  Most  writers  who  hold  the  North-Galatian  theory  speak  in  very 
strong  terms  of  the  incompleteness  of  the  narrative  in  Acts.  Much 
of  the  justification  for  their  criticism  disappears  when  the  narrative 
is  properly  interpreted. 

X     SlfXCcjV  8e   TU   iGvT]   TuilTO. 


88  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

classes  of  variants  described  by  Professor  Rendel  Harris  * 
and  need  not  be  enumerated. 

The  substitution  of  'yevoixevoi  for  eK66vTe<i  in  xvi.  7  is 
more  significant  than  any  other  of  the  variants  in  this 
passage.  The  verb  used  brings  out  even  more  clearly 
the  continuity  of  the  action  described  in  ver.  7  with  that 
described  in  ver.  6,  and  the  impossibility  of  supposing  that 
a  long  residence  and  evangelisation  in  North  Galatia  is 
to  be  interposed  between  the  verb  hirfkOov  and  the  verb 
eirelpal^ov  (fjOeKav  in  Codex  Bezce).  No  one  can  read 
the  sentence  contained  in  verses  6  and  7  without  being 
struck  with  the  obvious  ignorance  of  the  reviser  that  any 
process  of  evangelisation  in  a  new  land,  hitherto  untrodden 
by  the  Apostle  and  unmentioned  in  the  previous  chapters, 
is  described  in  the  opening  clause  of  ver.  6.  His  addition 
to  xvi.  I  brings  out  into  marked  prominence  his  conception 
that  the  clause  in  xvi.  6,  "  they  passed  through  the  Phrygo- 
Galatic  country,"  is  a  mere  geographical  recapitulation 
of  the  more  general  description  in  verses  4  and  5-  I^ 
xvi.  I  the  clause  BieXdoov,  etc.,  sums  up  the  description 
introduced  by  BtTjpxsro,  and  in  xvi.  6  the  clause  htrfkOoVy 
etc ,  sums  up  the  description  introduced  by  hLep-xpfievoi,. 
We  have  here  a  complete  proof  that  the  reviser  whose 
work  has  been  preserved  to  us  in  Codex  Bezce\  under- 
stood the  passage  as  we  have  interpreted  it.  If  the  other 
points  about  this  revision  which  we  attempt  in  these 
chapters   to   establish   are   satisfactorily  proved,  the  con- 

*  A  Study  of  Codex  Bezce,  p.  222. 

t  The  question  whether  the  text  of  Codex  Bezce  is  due  entirely 
to  this  reviser  or  is  complicated  by  other  influences  lies  apart  from 
our  subject.  My  remarks  about  it  are  confined,  like  my  knowledge, 
to  Acts  xiii. — xxi. 


IV.    The  Second  Journey.  89 

elusion  must  be  accepted  that  in  the  first  half  of  the 
second  century,  by  a  skilful,  well-informed,  careful,  and 
clear-headed  reviser,  who  was  familiar  with  an  indepen- 
dent tradition  preserved  in  Asia  Minor,  the  passage  in 
Acts  xvi.  1-6  was  interpreted  precisely  in  the  same 
way  that  we  have  interpreted  the  received  text* 

It  is  advisable  to  notice  an  argument  derived  from  the 
syntax  of  xvi.  6.  It  has  been  contended  that  the  participle 
K(ji\vQkvT€'i  gives  the  reason  for  the  finite  verb  hrjXdov, 
and  is  therefore  preliminary  to  it  in  the  sequence  of  time. 
We  reply  that  the  participial  construction  cannot,  in  this 
author,  be  pressed  in  that  way.  He  is  often  loose  in  the 
framing  of  his  sentences,  and  in  the  long  sentence  in 
verses  6  and  7  he  varies  the  succession  of  verbs  by  making 
some  of  them  participles.  The  sequence  of  the  verbs  is 
also  the  sequence  of  time:  (l)  they  went  through  the 
Phrygo-Galatic  land  ;  (2)  they  were  forbidden  to  speak 
in  Asia ;  (3)  they  came  over  against  Mysia ;  (4)  they 
assayed  to  go  into  Bithynia  ;  (5)  the  Spirit  suffered  them 
not ;  (6)  they  passed  through  Mysia ;  (7)  they  came  to 
Troas. 


•  The  account  of  the  journeys  which  is  here  given  was  printed 
before  I  had  looked  into  Codex  Bezce.  Working  at  the  Thekla- 
legend  for  a  later  chapter  of  this  work,  I  was  struck  with  the  fact 
that  the  legend  presupposes  the  reading  of  Codex  Bezce  in  xxi.  i  ; 
and  a  letter  from  Professor  Rendel  Harris,  in  answer  to  an  inquiry 
on  this  point,  turned  my  attention  to  the  wider  question.  The 
character  of  Codex  BezcB  is  so  plainly  marked  in  these  chapters 
that  a  few  hours'  work  at  it  convinced  me  of  its  origin  and  date. 
The  character  of  this  Codex  is  discussed  more  fully  in  Chapter 
VIII.,  §§  3-5- 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE     THIRD   JOURNEY. 

IN  St  Paul's  third  journey  it  seems  clear  that  his  original 
object  was  the  province  of  Asia,  and  the  visit  to  the 
churches  of  the  Galatian  country  was  a  mere  episode  by 
the  way.  The  aim  which  he  had  when  he  started  on  the 
second  journey,  and  which  he  was  forbidden  by  the  Spirit 
when  he  reached  Antioch  to  carry  into  effect,  was  realised 
in  his  third  journey.  The  terms  in  which  the  country 
traversed  by  him  before  reaching  Asia  is  described  are 
unfortunately  very  obscure;  he  "went  through  the  Galatic 
region  and  Phrygian"  (or  perhaps  "and  Phrygia ")  "in 
order  stablishing  all  the  disciples "  {hLepycnx,^vo<i  Kude^ij'i 
rrjv  TaXarLKrjv  %ct)/3ai/  koX  ^pvylav,  xviii.  23). 

The  difficulty  is  whether  we  are  to  understand  ^pvylav 
as  adjective  or  as  noun  :  if  the  former,  the  expression  is  to 
be  understood  in  the  same  way  as  xvi,  6, "  the  territory  which 
in  one  way  is  called  Galatic  and  in  another  Phrygian  "  ; 
if  the  latter,  the  expression  means  "  the  Galatic  territory 
and  Phrygia."  If  the  former  interpretation  is  correct,  the 
reversed  order  of  the  adjectives  must  be  explained  as 
merely  accidental,  and  due  to  the  perfect  indifference  as  to 
which  should  come  first,  the  meaning  being  precisely  the 
same  in  either  case.  When  we  follow  that  interpretation, 
the  passage  must  be  understood  on  the  analogy  of  xvi.  6, 
and  affords  no  new  evidence. 


V.    The   Third  Journey.  91 

But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  we  follow  the  second  interpre- 
tation, the  meaning  is  not  quite  clear  ;  for  Paul  must 
traverse  Phrygia  before  reaching  Asia,  by  whatever  route 
he  travelled.  He  came  from  Antioch  of  Syria  through 
the  Syrian  and  the  Cilician  Gates  ;  but  the  line  of  his 
route  is  not  indicated  until  he  reached  districts  which  he 
had  previously  visited  and  where  he  had  converts.  He 
traversed  this  country,  systematically  visiting  every  place 
where  there  were  disciples.  Besides  being  called  in  xviii. 
23,  "the  region  of  Galatia  and  Phrygia,"  the  district  is 
briefly  described  by  another  expression  in  xix.  i,  "  Paul, 
having  passed  through  the  upper  country  "  (SieXdovra  tcl 
avunepiica  fiipr]),  "  came  to  Ephesus," — i.e.,  he  traversed  the 
country  from  Cilicia  to  Ephesus,  crossing  the  great  central 
plateau,  and  descending  to  the  sea  again.  He  had  a  choice 
of  two  routes,  one  direct,  passing  through  the  churches 
which  he  visited  on  his  first  and  second  journeys,  Derbe, 
Lystra,  etc.,  and  the  other  making  an  enormous  circuit 
through  Cappadocia  and  North  Galatia,  and  omitting  all 
the  churches  which  are  known  to  us  by  name.  Can  we, 
in  the  face  of  the  word  Kade^P]'?,  suppose  that  he  left  un- 
visitcd  every  church  known  to  us,  and  visited  only  others 
which  are  never  elsewhere  mentioned  in  this  book,*  and 
whose  existence  is  only  assumed  in  order  to  explain  the 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians  ?  Certainly  the  writer  could  not 
easily  have  described  the  journey  in  a  way  more  calculated 

•  On  any  interpretation  of  the  words  of  Acts  xvi.  6,  the  foundation 
of  North-Galatian  churches  is  not  there  actually  alluded  to  ;  St. 
Paul  is  merely  said  to  have  traversed  the  Galatian  country,  but  no 
hint  is  given  that  he  founded  churches.  But  the  churches  mentioned 
in  xviii.  23  are  spoken  of  by  the  author  as  if  they  were  already 
familiar  to  his  readers. 


92  S^.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

to  mislead,  if  his  meaning  is  that  Paul  chose  the  northern 
route  through  Cappadocia  and  North  Galatia. 

Why  should  the  narrator,  who  in  other  cases  describes 
St.  Paul's  route  with  accuracy,  leave  it  entirely  doubtful 
whether  he  took  the  northern  or  the  southern  route  ?  The 
reason  is  that  the  northern  route  never  occurred  to  him  as 
a  possibility.  The  route  from  Syria  by  the  Cilician  Gates 
to  the  ^gean  coast  was  a  familiar  and  much  frequented 
one ;  and  unless  another  route  was  expressly  mentioned, 
every  one  would  understand  that  Paul  passed  through 
Lycaonia,  and  not  through  North  Galatia.  Moreover,  on 
our  theory,  the  reference  to  the  disciples  who  were  visited  in 
their  several  places  by  the  way  is  left  in  no  doubt.  After 
our  explanation  of  the  two  previous  journeys,  the  third  is 
perfectly  clear ;  it  is  only  on  the  North-Galatian  theory 
that  any  doubt  about  it  can  exist. 

Further,  the  North-Galatian  theory  does  not  explain 
the  words  "  all  the  disciples."  If  the  journey  passed 
through  North  Galatia,  Paul  could  not  visit  the  South- 
Galatian  churches :  why  then  should  the  writer  be  so 
careful  to  mention  that  he  visited  "  all  the  disciples  "  ?  * 
On  the  South-Galatian  theory  he  would  naturally  visit 
them  all,  for  no  congregations  existed  except  those  which 
lay  along  his  route. 

The  account  of  the  third  journey  is,  therefore,  not  ex- 
pressed in  language  which,  taken  by  itself,  gives  any 
conclusive  argument  as  to  the  route  followed  ;  but  it  gives 
a  much  clearer  and  more  satisfactory  picture,  when  inter- 
preted according  to  the  South-Galatian  theory. 

*  Moreover  Kadf^rjs  implies  "  in  order  from  the  first  to  the  last, 
from  east  to  west." 


V.    The  Third  Journey.  93 

We  must  therefore  interpret  the  phrase  ttjv  TaXanKrjv 
Xf^pO'^  ««^  ^pvj^av,  as  corresponding  on  the  whole  to  the 
similar  phrase  ryv  ^pvycav  kuI  TakaTiKrjv  ^o6/3ay  in  xvi.  6. 
Why,  then,  did  the  author  of  the  "Travel-Document"  change 
his  expression  ?  He  did  so  because  the  phrase  in  xvi.  6 
would  be  incorrect  in  xviii.  23.  The  country  denoted  by 
the  phrase  in  xvi.  6  is  that  which  was  traversed  by  Paul 
after  leaving  Lystra :  it  is  therefore  the  territory  about 
Iconium  and  Antioch,  and  is  rightly  called  Phrygo-Galatic, 
"  the  part  of  Phrygia  that  was  attached  to  Galatia."  But 
the  country  which  is  meant  in  xviii.  23  includes  Derbe, 
Lystra,  Iconium,  and  Antioch,  and  could  not  rightly  be 
called  "  Phrygo-Galatic."  If  the  writer  wished  to  carry 
out  this  complicated  phraseology,  he  would  have  had  to 
say  "  Lycaono-Galatic  and  Phrygo-Galatic."  He  avoids 
the  difficulty  by  using  the  simple  phrase  "the  Galatic 
country."  The  sense  of  ^pvylav  still  remains  doubtful :  it 
may  denote  either  Phrygia  Galatica,  or  Phrygia  Magna 
(which  Paul  would  traverse  after  leaving  the  Galatic 
territory),  or  both. 

It  must  be  acknowledged  that  there  is  in  this  journey 
one  difficulty  from  which  the  North-Galatian  theory  is 
free.  St  Paul's  object  was  the  west  coast  of  Asia,  and 
Ephesus  was  the  point  at  which  he  arrived.  The  ordinary 
and  frequented  route  for  trade  between  Antioch  and  the 
west  coast  passed  through  Apameia  and  Colossae  and 
Laodiceia.  But  it  would  appear  from  the  Epistle  to  the 
Colossians  (ii.  i)  that  the  Christians  at  Colossae  and 
at  Laodiceia  had  not  seen  his  face.  On  the  other  hand, 
his  natural  route,  according  to  the  North-Galatian  theory, 
would  not  lead  him  through  Colossae  and  Laodiceia,  but 
would  pass  more  to  the  north  through  Philadelpheia. 


94  ^^-  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

We  may  remark  on  this  that,  in  the  first  place,  the 
journey,  so  far  as  it  traversed  new  country,  was  evidently 
rapid  and  unbroken  ;  for  there  is  no  allusion  to  preaching 
in  new  places,  but  only  to  the  confirming  of  old  converts, 
until  Ephesus  was  reached.  It  is  therefore  quite  possible 
that  St.  Paul  might  have  spent  a  night  either  at  Colossae 
or  at  Laodiceia,*  and  yet  that  he  might  several  years 
afterwards  write  to  the  Christians  there  as  persons  who  had 
never  seen  his  face.  Moreover,  though  trade  and  vehicles 
regularly  took  the  road  through  Apameia  and  Laodiceia, 
foot-passengers  might  quite  possibly  prefer  the  shorter  hill 
road  by  the  plain  of  Metropolis  and  the  Tchyvritzi 
Kleisoura,  in  which,  many  centuries  later,  the  last  serious 
attempt  of  the  Byzantine  Emperors  to  break  the  rising 
power  of  the  Seljuk  Turks  failed  through  the  headstrong 
folly  of  the  brave  but  rash  Manuel  Comnenus.  This  path 
would  take  them  by  way  of  Eumeneia  and  the  Cayster 
valley,  and  would  save  a  day's  journey.f 

The  text  of  Codex  Bezce  in  this  passage  is  remark- 
able. It  reads  in  xix.  i,  "  And  when  Paul  was  minded 
according  to  his  own  plan  to  go  to  Jerusalem,  the 
Spirit  bade  him  turn  back  into  Asia ;  and  having  passed 
through    the    upper    country    he    came    unto    Ephesus." 


*  If  he  was  going  at  even  a  moderate  rate,  he  would  not  pass  a 
night  in  each,  for  the  distance  between  them  is  only  about  ten  miles. 
We  observe  here,  as  always,  that  Paul  hurries  on  to  the  great  centres 
of  civilisation  and  education  (in  th's  case  to  Ephesus). 

t  The  inference  from  Col.  ii.  i  that  St.  Paul's  face  had  never 
been  seen  by  the  Christians  at  Colossae  and  Laodiceia  is  by  no  means 
universally  accepted.  For  example,  Lewin,  Si.  Paul,  p.  196, 
understands  from  the  verse  that  Paul  had  been  at  Colossae,  but  not  at 
Laodiceia.  I  cannot,  however,  doubt  that  the  inference  in  the  pre- 
ceding paragraph  is  right. 


V.    T/ie   Third  Join'ney.  95 

The  reviser  understood  that  Paul,  after  having  traversed 
the  Phrygo-Galatic  country  and  stablished  all  the  dis- 
ciples, began  to  return  with  the  intention  of  proceeding 
to  Jerusalem ;  but  thereupon  the  Spirit  ordered  him  to 
turn  back  and  go  into  Asia.  The  reviser  obviously 
considered,  therefore,  that  Paul,  when  he  began  to  return 
towards  Jerusalem,  had  noc  entered  Asia  ;  and,  if  so, 
he  did  not  understand  ^pir/iav  in  the  sense  ordinarily 
given  to  it,  for  Phrygia,  as  distinguished  from  the  Galatic 
territory,  belongs  to  the  province  Asia,  and  both  North 
and  South-Galatian  theories  have  to  start  from  that 
fact. 

The  readings  described  here  and  on  pp.  8y  ff.  are  pecu- 
liarly valuable ;  for  they  give  us  a  slight  but  yet  sufficiently 
trustworthy  indication  of  the  date  when  the  reviser  did  his 
work.  Previous  indications  have  shown  that  he  worked 
later  than  the  first  century  ;  now  we  shall  see  that  he 
worked  before  the  middle  of  the  second  century.  The 
reviser,  as  we  saw  in  the  preceding  chapter,  had  no  thought 
that  Paul  travelled  in  North  Galatia,  and  understood 
FaXariK^  %wpa  in  the  sense  which  we  have  proved  to  be 
common  and  usual  in  the  first  and  early  second  century. 
He  therefore  considered  that  this  third  journey  also  led 
through  Derbe,  Lystra,  Iconium,  and  Antioch ;  and  that 
Paul,  after  visiting  and  stablishing  all  his  converts,  was 
returning  to  Jerusalem,  when  he  was  ordered  to  go  into 
Asia.  We  have  also  seen  that  the  reviser  adapted  the 
topography  of  the  document  to  the  facts  of  his  own  time. 
It  is  therefore  clear  that  the  cities  visited  by  Paul  were 
still  considered  by  the  reviser  to  be  in  the  Galatic  country 
when  he  worked  over  the  text.  Now  great  part  of 
Lycaonia   was   separated    from    Galatia   in    the  reign   of 


gb  St.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

Antoninus  Pius,  between  138  and  161  A.D.  ;*  and  we  may 
feel  confident  that,  if  the  reviser  had  worked  after  the 
change  of  system  had  become  familiar  and  had  produced 
a  new  nomenclature,  he  would  have  remodelled  the  text 
accordingly.  The  revision  therefore  took  place  before 
A.D.  161,  and  probably  not  later  than  A.D.  150. 

The  reference  to  the  bidding  of  the  Spirit  marks  the 
addition  at  the  beginning  of  xix.  i  as  one  of  a  class  of 
insertions  in  this  Codex,  with  which  we  are  not  directly  con- 
cerned here.f  But  this  passage  goes  beyond  its  class  in 
asserting  that  Paul  actually  intended  to  act  differently,  and 
that  his  intention  to  go  to  Jerusalem  was  checked  by  the 
Spirit.  It  seems  hardly  possible  to  reconcile  this  positive 
statement  with  the  reverence  for  the  text  which  the  reviser 
certainly  felt,  except  on  the  assumption  that  he  was 
acquainted  with  an  independent  tradition  on  the  point 
which  he  believed  to  be  true,  and  considered  himself 
justified  by  its  truth  in  adding  to  the  text 

•See  Hist.  Geogr.,  pp.  253,  376.  The  probability  is  that  the 
change  took  place  in  an  early  part  of  the  reign  [lb.,  p.  376,  note),  and 
A.D.  150  may  fairly  be  taken  as  the  latest  date. 

t  Rendel  Harris,  Study  of  Codex  Bezcs,  p.  221. 


I 


CHAPTER   VI. 

THE  EPISTLE   TO   THE   GALATIANS. 

I.  Arguments  Founded  on  the  Epistle. 

HAVE  intentionally  refrained  from  mentioning  any  of 
the  general  arguments  which  have  been  advanced  by 
previous  advocates  of  the  South-Galatian  theory.  They 
vary  in  value.  Some  have  very  little  value,  while  others 
at  least  corroborate  the  theory.  The  real  proof  must  depend 
on  the  interpretation  of  Acts,  and  the  theory  stands  or  falls 
thereby ;  but  a  brief  summary  of  these  arguments,  as  they 
are  given  by  Lipsius,  may  properly  find  a  place  here,  and 
his  counter-arguments  may  be  noticed,  where  they  seem  to 
require  it. 

1.  St.  Paul  habitually  uses  district  names  in  the  Roman 
sense ;  and  Lycaonia  was  in  Roman  Galatia.  This  we 
have  already  discussed  and  put  more  accurately. 

2.  St.  Paul  uses  the  Greek  language  to  the  Christians 
whom  he  addresses,  and  apparently  calls  them  Greeks ; 
whereas  the  North-Galatians  spoke  Celtic.  This  argu- 
ment, put  in  this  bare  way,  has  no  real  value ;  its  proper 
character  has  already  been  discussed.     (See  p.  82.) 

3.  He  mentions  (Gal.  ii.  13)  Barnabas  as  a  person  known 
to  his  readers  ;  Barnabas  was  not  personally  known  to  the 
North-Galatians.  I  can  see  no  great  value  in  this  argu- 
ment. Barnabas  is  alluded  to,  and  his  views  on  the 
question  of  evangelising  the  Gentiles  are  assumed  to  be 

7 


98  5"/.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

familiar  to  the  readers ;  but  the  same  assumption  is  made 
about  Peter  and  some  of  the  other  apostles.  It  is,  however, 
true  that  Barnabas  was  not  such  a  prominent  figure,  and 
acquaintance  with  his  views  is  more  remarkable  than  know- 
ledge of  what  Peter  thought. 

4.  Paul's  companions,  when  he  was  returning  from  Corinth 
to  Jerusalem,  seem  to  represent  the  different  churches,  and 
bear  their  contributions.  Among  them  are  Gaius  of  Derbe 
and  Timothy  of  Lystra,  but  none  from  North  Galatia. 
This  argument  has  very  little  value ;  Timothy  at  least 
might  be  with  Paul  as  his  travelling  companion,  and  several 
other  churches  have  no  representatives. 

5.  There  is  no  record  in  Acts  of  the  foundation  of 
churches  in  North  Galatia.  This  depends  entirely  on  the 
interpretation  of  the  narrative  in  Acts  xvi,  and  xviii. 

6.  The  presence  of  Jewish  emissaries,  which  is  pre- 
supposed in  the  epistle,  is  natural  in  South  Galatia  and 
improbable  in  North  Galatia.  This  is  an  important  piece 
of  corroborative  evidence,  and  requires  more  careful 
attention,  as  it  is  connected  with  a  general  law  observable 
in  the  development  of  the  country. 

The  change  in  the  feeling  of  the  Galatians  was  due  to 
the  action  of  a  definite  individual,  a  person  of  some  con- 
sequence and  standing,  who  had  beguiled  them  into  an 
exaggerated  devotion  to  the  Jewish  law  and  practices.*  St 
Paul  knows  him,  but  does  not  name  him  in  writing  to  the 
Galatians.  This  visit  of  several  strangers  (the  great  man 
and  his  companions),  taken  in  connection  with  St.  Paul's 
two  passages  across  the  Galatian  territory,  makes  it  pro- 

*  See  Gal.  v.  7  and  10,  with  the  notes  of  Lipsius.  I  accept  his 
interpretation  in  preference  to  other  views. 


r  I.    The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  99 

bable  that  a  frequented  and  common  route  from  Syria 
led  through  it.*  It  is  hardly  probable  that  they  went 
forth  for  the  express  purpose  of  counteracting  Paul ; 
rather  they  would  be  travelling  with  the  general  intention 
of  preaching  in  the  most  populous  and  frequented  dis- 
tricts of  Asia,  along  a  familiar  and  important  road.  This 
consideration  suits  the  South-Galatian,  but  not  the  North- 
Galatian  territory.  Elsewhere  I  have  shown  at  length  f 
that  the  development  and  the  importance  of  the  territory 
on  the  northern  side  of  the  plateau — i.e..  Northern  Galatia 
and  Northern  Phrygia — belong  to  the  period  following 
after  292,  and  result  from  the  transference  of  the  centre 
of  government  first  to  Nicomedeia  and  afterwards  to 
Constantinople.  Under  the  earlier  Roman  Empire,  the 
southern  side  of  the  plateau  was  far  more  important 
than  the  northern  side.  It  would  be  easy,  but  is  here 
unnecessary  and  unsuitable,  to  strengthen  this  proof  by 
quoting  many  facts  which  confirm  the  view  that  North 
Galatia  as  a  whole  was  slow  in  adopting  the  Graeco-Roman 
civilisation,^  that  it  was  not  as  a  country  so  familiar  to 
strangers  from  Syria  as  South  Galatia,  that  except  in 
Ancyra  and  Pessinus  and  Germa  §  there  was  probably  no 

•  Lipsius  replies  by  quoting  proof  that  Ancyra  and  Tavium  (the 
latter  he  identifies  with  Gordium,  which  was  loo  miles  distant)  were 
on  an  important  trade  route,  but  he  does  not  prove  (and  could  not 
prove)  that  they  were  on  a  route  of  Syrian  trade.  His  remarks  about 
the  situation  of  Iconium,  etc.,  show  such  erroneous  views  of  the 
country  and  its  antiquities  that  I  need  not  mention  them.  (See  Hand 
Kommentar,  II.  2,  p.  3.) 

t  Hist.  Geogr.,  chaps.  G,  H,  J,  K. 

X  See  one  fact  mentioned  on  pp.  146-7. 

§  Germa  was  a  colony,  though  not  one  of  much  importance.  It 
struck  coins.     See  p.  82. 


lOO  St.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

Greek-speaking  population  in  North  Galatia  to  which  St. 
Paul  could  address  himself,  and  no  Jewish  congregations 
with  which  he  could  make  a  beginning. 

Why  then  did  the  Roman  governor  reside  at  Ancyra, 
and  not  in  Southern  Galatia  ?  Ancyra  was  the  capital  of 
the  province,  because  it  was  a  city  of  great  importance 
and  wealth  (beyond  Iconium  or  Antioch),  commanding 
a  fertile  country ;  and  because  the  problems  of  Roman 
policy  in  the  north  of  Asia  Minor  were  very  serious,  and 
required  an  ofHcial  of  high  rank  there.  The  absorption  of 
the  neighbouring  countries  into  the  Empire  was  going  on 
in  that  quarter  with  great  rapidity  during  the  first  century, 
and  each  new  addition  to  the  Empire  was  incorporated  in 
the  province  Galatia. 

7.  St.  Paul  had  been  twice  in  Galatia  before  he  wrote 
the  epistle  ;  if  North  Galatia  is  the  country  in  question,  he 
had  visited  Jerusalem  at  least  three  times  before  he  wrote, 
whereas  in  the  epistle  he  speaks  only  of  two  visits  to 
Jerusalem.  This  is  an  important  subject ;  but  it  is  so 
difficult,  and  opens  up  so  many  disputed  points,  that  it 
has  no  value  as  a  piece  of  corroborative  evidence.  It  is, 
of  course,  in  any  case  difficult  to  reconcile  the  two  visits 
of  the  epistle  with  the  account  given  in  the  earlier  part  of 
Acts,  which  seems  to  necessitate  the  recognition  of  more 
visits  ;  and  the  difficulty  is  greatly  increased  if  the  epistle 
is  placed  after  the  third  journey,  when  an  additional  visit 
to  Jerusalem  has  to  be  reckoned  with.  On  the  South- 
Galatian  theory,  the  epistle  might  have  been  written  soon 
after  St  Paul  crossed  into  Europe.  It  would  thus  be 
one  of  the  earliest  of  the  extant  epistles  ;  and  the  oldest 
authority  on  the  subject,  Marcion,  about  a  century  later, 
placed  it  actually  first  in  his  edition  of  the  epistles.     This 


VI.    The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians.  loi 

fact  is  far  from  conclusive,  for  it  is  not  proved  that  Marcion 
arranged  his  collection  according  to  what  he  believed  to 
be  chronological  order  ;  but  his  order  must  be  allowed  to 
have  a  certain  value  *  in  regard  to  the  opening  epistle. 

There  is,  however,  no  doubt  that  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians  has  far  closer  analogies  with  i  and  2  Corinthians 
and  Romans  (which  were  composed  on  the  third  journey), 
than  with  i  and  2  Thessalonians  (which  were  written  during 
the  second  journey).  But  it  is  a  question  whether  the 
difference  of  tone  in  the  latter  may  not  be  quite  explicable 
by  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  church  at  Thessalonica'* 
and,  even  if  Paul  wrote  to  the  Galatians  from  Corinth,  there 
seems  no  reason  why  his  views  and  thoughts  should  not  be 
very  similar  to  those  he  expressed  to  the  Romans  and 
Corinthians  on  his  third  journey  a  little  later. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  date  during  the  second 
journey  would  suit  several  passages  in  Galatians  well ;  and 
this  date  is  consistent  with  the  South-Galatian,  but  not 
with  the  North-Galatian,  theory.  But  so  long  as  the  well- 
known  problem  connected  with  St.  Paul's  visits  to  Jerusalem 
remains  unsolved,  nothing  final  can  be  said  on  this  point. 

8.  The  dispute  which  took  place  during  St.  Paul's  visit 
to  Jerusalem  (Gal.  ii.  5)  concerned  those  whom  Paul 
addresses  (uytta?) ;  but  the  visit  took  place  before  the 
second  journey,  and  he  is  not  supposed  by  any  one  to 
have  visited  North  Galatia  on  his  first  journey.  This 
is  not  an  important  point. 

9.  Another  argument  is  mentioned  by  Lightfoot  as 
strong  but  not  convincing.  At  Lystra  St.  Paul  was 
taken   for   an    impersonation    of    the   Divine   power,   and 

•  Wieseler  argues  that  his  order  was  in  a  rough  way  chronological. 


I02  5/.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

similarly  the  Galatians  of  the  epistle  received  him  as 
an  angel  of  God  (iv.  14)  ;  and  this  idea  dwells  in  the 
writer's  mind,  and  suggests  his  expression  in  i.  8,  "though 
we,  or  an  angel  from  heaven,  should  preach  unto 
you  any  gospel."  The  extraordinary  effect  produced  by 
Paul  in  Antioch,  etc.,  is  shown  in  Acts  xiii.,  xiv, ;  we 
cannot  say  that  anything  quite  similar  to  it  is  related 
of  any  other  part  of  his  missionary  work.  Precisely  such 
extraordinary  effect  is  implied  in  the  epistle ;  and  the 
coincidence  between  the  two  documents  is  acknowledged 
by  Lightfoot  to  be  striking. 

10.  It  is  implied  that  the  opponents  of  St  Paul  quoted 
his  own  action  and  misrepresented  him  as  preaching  cir- 
cumcision (v.  11).*  The  reference  to  his  action  in  the  case 
of  Timothy  is  here  unmistakable,  and  is  fully  admitted 
by  Lightfoot  in  his  commentary  on  the  verse.  Such  an 
argument  would  appeal  with  peculiarly  strong  effect  to 
the  South-Galatian  churches  after  what  is  related  in 
Acts  xvi.  3. 

2.  St.  Paul's  Feelings  Towards  the  Galatian 
Churches. 

The  churches  of  Antioch,  etc.,  were  the  firstfruits  of 
St.  Paul's  wider  activity,  and  the  narrative  in  Acts  shows 
that  his  experiences  among  them  on  his  first  journey  were 
most  encouraging  for  the  initiator  of  a  new  departure  in 
the  guidance  of  missionary  effort.  Moreover,  they  gave  him 
his  most  faithful  and  devoted  companion  throughout  his 
subsequent  life,  Timothy.     We  should  certainly  suppose 

*  Die  eingedrungenen  Sendlinge  .  .  .  vorwerfen  dent  Paulus, 
er  -predige  ja  selbst  die  Beschneidung. 


VI.    The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians.  103 

from  his  general  character,  and  from  the  personal  affection 
which  he  often  shows  for  his  converts,  that  he  would  retain 
a  warm  interest  in  his  earliest  Gentile  churches.  The 
Philippians,  the  first  of  his  European  hearers,  were  regarded 
by  himself  with  special  love.  He  refers  to  his  earliest 
converts  in  Greece  and  in  Asia  as  the  firstfruits  of  Achaia 
and  of  Asia.  Surely  we  should  find  in  his  epistles  some 
proof  of  interest  in  Antioch,  Iconium,  Derbe,  and  Lystra. 

The  narrative  in  Acts  proves  that  he  did  retain  such 
an  interest  in  this  South-Galatian  group  of  churches,  for 
he  visited  Derbe  at  least  twice,  Lystra  and  Iconium  and 
Antioch  at  least  three  times ;  while,  on  our  theory,  he 
visited  them  all  once  more  on  his  third  missionary 
journey.  Yet,  on  the  usual  theory,  we  find  throughout 
St.  Paul's  writings  no  single  word  to  show  that  he  retained 
a  kindly  recollection  of  them  or  an  interest  in  them.  Once 
he  does  refer  to  them,  but  only  to  recall  his  sufferings  and 
persecution  among  them  (2  Tim.  iii.  11)  ;  in  no  other  way, 
at  no  other  time,  does  he  make  any  allusion  to  them. 
Even  when  he  orders  a  contribution  for  the  sufferers  by 
the  famine  in  Palestine  (i  Cor.  xvi.  i),  he  thinks  of  the 
Galatian  churches,  but  not  (according  to  the  dominant 
theory)  about  the  churches  of  Antioch,  Iconium,  Derbe, 
and  Lystra.  It  would  be  impossible  to  conceive  a  more 
direct  contradiction  in  tone  and  emotional  feeling  than 
exists,  on  this  theory,  between  Acts  and  Galatians,  as 
regards  St.  Paul's  attitude  to  the  South-Galatian  churches. 
Such  a  contradiction  is  inexplicable,  except  on  the  sup- 
position that  Acts  belongs  to  a  different  period  and  to 
different  surroundings  from  the  Epistles ;  the  Epistles  give 
the  real  tone  and  feeling  that  ruled  in  the  actual  circum- 
stances, Acts  gives  the  later  memory  that  survived  among 


I04  S^.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

the  Christians  of  the  second  century,  and  its  composition 
would  have  to  be  dated  in  that  period.  I  can  see  no  escape 
from  this  conclusion,  if  we  admit  that  the  contradiction 
exists ;  and  in  opposition  to  it  my  aim  is  to  show  that 
both  accounts  belong  to  the  same  period,  and  are  instinct 
with  the  same  emotion. 

Moreover,  we  might  ask  how  a  later  age,  to  which  the 
composition  of  Acts  is  relegated  on  this  supposition,  came 
to  attach  so  much  more  importance  to  these  churches  than 
Paul  himself  did?  It  is  certain  that  the  South-Galatian 
churches  did  not  in  later  time  play  a  very  prominent  part 
in  Christian  history  ;  they  had  for  a  short  time,  during 
St.  Paul's  own  life,  the  interest  naturally  attaching  to  the 
first  Gentile  churches,  and  they  never  again  held  the  same 
position.  The  account  given  in  Acts  is  historically  true 
to  the  period  48-64  A.D.,  and  not  to  later  time. 

Thus,  on  every  ground,  the  inconsistency  and  self-contra- 
diction involved  in  the  dominant  North-Galatian  theory 
become  clear.  The  conclusion  is  plain.  That  theory  is 
wrong  ;  and  the  interpretation  which  restores  consistency 
to  the  documents,  and  reality  to  the  history  contained  in 
them,  must  be  accepted. 

As  to  the  discrepancy  which  exists,  on  the  North-Galatian 
theory,  between  the  silence  of  Acts  about  the  North- 
Galatian  churches,  and  the  importance  which  the  epistle 
implies  them  to  possess,  it  is  no  defence  to  quote  the  fact 
that  St.  Paul  wrote  to  the  Colossians,  yet  they  are  never 
mentioned  in  Acts.  In  the  letter  he  expressly  says  that 
they  had  never  seen  him,  and  hence  in  Acts  there  was  no 
opportunity  of  mentioning  them  ;  but  yet  a  clear  and 
admitted  allusion  to  Colossae  and  Laodiceia  occurs  in 
xix.  10,  "  all  they  which  dwelt  in  Asia  heard  the  word." 


VI.    The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians.  105 

3.  Arguments  for  the  North-Galatian  Theory. 

If  we  ask  for  positive  arguments  in  favour  of  the  North- 
Galatian  theory,  none  are  offered.  All  arguments  in  its 
favour  take  the  form  of  pointing  out  difficulties  in  the  other 
theory.  There  are  undoubtedly  difficulties  in  the  other 
theory ;  but  the  history  of  the  Apostolic  period  is  full  of 
difficulties,  in  comparison  to  which  those  involved  in  the 
South-Galatian  theory  are  trifles.  The  North-Galatian 
theory  avoids  the  difficulties  by  creating  an  unknown  set  of 
churches,  to  which  the  epistle  was  addressed,  as  the  Greek 
mythologists  explained  the  contradictions  in  their  fables  by 
creating  two  or  five  or  ten  persons  bearing  the  same  name  ; 
but  in  one  case  alone  did  we  find  that  it  solved  a  difficulty 
in  which  the  South-Galatian  theory  was  involved.  Hence 
no  positive  argument  can  be  brought  forward  in  its  favour, 
for  the  North-Galatian  churches  are  an  unknown  factor  ; 
and  it  cannot  be  either  proved  or  disproved  that  the  facts 
alluded  to  in  the  epistle  suit  them.  One  single  argument 
which  looks  like  a  positive  reason  may  detain  our  attention 
for  a  moment. 

The  North  Galatians  were  a  Celtic  race  who  had  invaded 
Asia  Minor  in  the  third  century  B.C.  It  has  been  argued 
with  much  unanimity  and  strength  of  assertion  that  the 
character,  conduct,  and  emotions  of  the  Galatians  to  whom 
the  epistle  is  addressed  are  those  of  a  Celtic  people.  It  is 
certainly  a  sound  principle  to  compare  the  qualities  implied 
in  St.  Paul's  epistles  with  the  national  character  of  the 
persons  addressed  ;  but  national  character  is  a  very  delicate 
subject  to  deal  with,  and  the  Celtic  faults  and  qualities  are 
certainly  overstated  by  some  of  the  commentators.  The 
climax   of  imaginative   insight  into  national  character   is 


io6  St.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

reached  by  some  Germans,  who  consider  the  population  of 
North  Galatia  to  be  not  Celtic  but  Germanic,  and  discover 
in  the  Galatians  of  the  epistle  the  qualities  of  their  own 
nation. 

Much  might  be  said  in  the  way  of  arguing  that  the  action 
of  the  Galatians  was  due,  not  to  the  peculiarities  of  Celts, 
but  to  the  nature  of  an  Oriental  people  like  the  Phrygians 
and  Lycaonians,  who  had  a  strong  natural  affinity  for  the 
Hebraic  type  of  Christianity  {v.  p.  57  n.).  But  it  will  be 
readily  granted  that  this  line  of  argument  has  no  force  in 
the  decision  of  the  question  ;  the  nationality  of  the  persons 
addressed  must  be  settled  on  other  considerations,  and  then 
it  will  be  time  to  search  for  indications  of  their  national 
character  in  the  traits  and  acts  recorded  of  them. 

Wendt,  in  his  last  edition  of  "  Meyer's  Commentary," 
appears  to  take  a  sort  of  middle  view,  if  I  rightly  understand 
him.  He  expressly  admits  that  St.  Paul  uses  the  term 
Galatia,  like  all  provincial  names,  in  the  Roman  sense,  and 
that  it  would  be  quite  in  accordance  with  his  style  to 
use  the  expression  "churches  of  Galatia,"  indicating  the 
churches  of  Antioch,  Iconium,  etc.*  He  quotes  the  refer- 
ence to  Galatia,  i  Cor.  xvi.  i,  as  an  example  of  St.  Paul's 
custom  of  using  such  terms  in  the  Roman  sense.f  He 
therefore  considers  that  in  i  Cor.  xvi.  i  '  the  churches  of 
Galatia"  includes  the  South  Galatian  churches.  Yet  he 
proceeds  to  deny  that  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  could 
possibly  be  written  to  the  South-Galatians,  and  asserts  that 
it  must  be  written  to  the  North-Galatian  churches  alone. 
This  view  appears  to  imply  utter  confusion  of  thought  in 


*  Commentary  on  xvi.  6-10,  footnote  to  pp.  353,  354- 
t  Commentary  on  xiii.  9. 


VI.    The  Epistle  to  the  Galatiajis.  107 

Paul,  and  to  attribute  to  him  a  carelessness  in  the  use  of 
terms  which  no  accurate  writer  could  be  guilty  of.  To 
justify  this  view  Wendt  adduces  one  single  argument,  which 
he  considers  decisive.  It  is  as  follows.  In  Gal,  i.  21  St. 
Paul  says  that  he  spent  in  Syria  and  Cilicia  the  interval 
of  fourteen  years  between  his  first  and  second  visits*  to 
Jerusalem,  and  does  not  mention  that  he  was  in  Galatia 
during  that  time.  It  was  unnecessary  for  him  to  mention 
to  North-Galatian  Christians  that  he  had  been  in  South 
Galatia  during  the  interval  ;  but  it  appears  to  Wendt 
"  psychologically  impossible "  that  Paul  should  not  have 
mentioned  the  visit  to  South  Galatia,  if  he  had  been  writing 
to  the  South-Galatian  Christians. 

It  might  be  a  sufficient  answer  that  the  reconciliation  of 
the  account  given  in  the  epistle  of  St.  Paul's  visits  to 
Jerusalem  with  the  narrative  in  Acts  is  the  greatest  histori- 
cal problem  in  his  life ;  and  that  no  argument  founded  on 
that  account  has  any  great  value  until  the  whole  problem 
is  solved.  But,  further,  I  think  that  Wendt's  argument  does 
not  take  the  simplest  way  of  treating  the  difficulty  which 
he  has  touched.  The  view  which  I  shall  suggest  seems 
easier ;  and  for  that  reason  I  mention  it,  though  I  feel 
that  it  does  not  solve  the  difficulty  fully. 

The  best  way  to  test  this  argument  is  to  carry  into  effect 
the  "  psychological "  necessity.  Let  us  still  suppose  that  the 
letter  was  addressed  to  the  South  Galatians,  and  let  us  add 
the  words  which,  according  to  Wendt,  would  in  that  case 

*  I  do  not  intend  to  prejudge  the  question  whether  the  interval  is 
between  the  first  and  second  visits,  or  between  the  conversion  and 
the  second  visit.  Both  interpretations  are  possible  in  the  Greek, 
and  only  a  complete  chronological  system  can  determine  which  of 
the  two  is  meant. 


io8  St.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

be  so  necessary.  Let  any  one  read  over  Gal.  i.  i8 — ii.  i, 
making  verse  21  into  "  Then  I  came  into  the  regions  of  Syria 
and  Cilicia,  and,  as  you  are  aware,  I  preached  among  you," 
(who  dwell  in  the  Roman  province  adjoining  Cilicia).  Does 
this  add  to  the  effect  of  the  narrative  as  a  piece  of  impas- 
sioned argument  ?  Is  it  inconceivable  or  inconsistent  with 
Paul's  style,  rapid,  disjointed,  leaving  much  to  the  intelli- 
gence of  his  readers,  that  he  should  assume  that  the 
churches  of  Iconium,  etc.,  knew  his  history  during  those 
years  well  enough  to  fill  in  for  themselves  the  details 
which,  as  we  know,  are  concealed  in  the  expression 
"  the  regions  of  Syria  and  Cilicia  "  ?  It  is  precisely  be- 
cause he  was  writing  to  persons  among  whom  he  had 
spent  a  long  time,  during  the  interval  of  fourteen  years 
about  which  he  is  writing,  precisely  because  he  can  assume 
that  they  had  the  knowledge  needed  to  fill  in  the  details, 
that  he  contents  himself  with  the  hurried  words,  "the 
regions  of  Syria  and  Cilicia."  During  those  years  he  had 
always  been  in  Syria,  or  in  Cilicia,  or  near  the  Cilician 
frontier  and  in  regions  closely  connected  with  Cilicia.* 
This  was  familiar  at  Iconium,  but  we  have  no  reason  to 
think  that  Paul  could  have  presumed  upon  its  being  familiar 
at  Ancyra  and  Pessinus,  which  he  is  not  supposed  to  have 
seen  until  after  the  fourteen  years  had  expired. 

Another  objection  may  be  noticed.     It  has  been  stated 

*  The  road  through  the  Cilician  Gates  by  Iconium  to  the  west  was 
one  of  the  great  routes  of  history ;  and  a  considerable  connection 
between  Iconium  and  Tarsus  is  certain,  though  not  so  close  as  that 
between  Syria  and  Cyprus  or  Pamphylia.  Cilicia  Tracheia  reached 
nearly  to  Derbe ;  and  the  name  Cilicia  is  several  times  used  by 
Appian  in  a  very  wide  sense  to  include  the  southern  parts  of 
Lycaonia. 


VI.    The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians.  109 

by  some  commentators  that  at  ApoUonia,  a  town  which 
in  many  respects  occupied  a  similar  position  to  Antioch 
(for  it  was  originally  Phrygian  and  afterwards  Pisidian,  and 
moreover  was  included  in  the  province  Galatia  from  25  B.C. 
onwards),  the  Lydo- Phrygian  era  of  the  organisation  by . 
Sulla  85-4  B.C.  was  employed.*  The  use  of  this  era  implies 
that  the  people  of  ApoUonia  did  not  set  great  store  by  their 
connexion  with  the  province  Galatia ;  otherwise  they  would 
have  reckoned  their  chronology  from  the  incorporation  of 
that  province.  When  it  has  been  proved  that  the  Lydo- 
Phrygian  era  was  employed  in  ApoUonia,  some  historical 
inferences  of  a  different  character  will  be  deducible  ;  but 
up  to  the  present  it  has  not  been  proved.  The  commen- 
tators refer  to  an  inscription  dated  in  the  year  247  ;  but  it 
is  quite  uncertain  from  what  era  this  number  is  reckoned. 
M.  Waddington  indeed,  who  is  perhaps  the  highest  authority 
on  the  antiquities  of  Asia  Minor,  says  in  his  commentary 
that  the  date  ought  perhaps  to  be  reckoned  according  to 
the  Lydo-Phrygian  era  ;  but  it  is  just  as  easily  reckoned 
from  the  Galatian  era,  and,  until  other  dated  inscriptions 
are  found  to  decide,  nothing  can  be  inferred  from  this  one.f 
A  via  media,  which  perhaps  might  be  thought  to  reconcile 
the  two  opposite  theories, — viz.,  that  the  epistle  is  written 
to  both  North  and  South  Galatian  churches,— is  decisively 
to  be  rejected.  The  churches  addressed  in  the  epistle  were 
converted  at  one  time  (iv.  13),  whereas  the  South-Galatians 
were  converted  on  the  first  journey,  and  the  North-Gala- 
tians  were,  according  to  the  theory,  converted  on  the  second 


•  Corpus  Inscript.  GrcBC,  No.  3973 ;  Le  Bas  and  Waddington, 
No.  1192. 

t  Franz  on  C.I.G.  3973  suggests  the  era  49  B.C.  The  suggestion 
has  no  antecedent  probability,  but  cannot  be  proved  to  be  false. 


no  5*/.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

journey.  Moreover,  if  these  chapters  have  succeeded  in 
proving  anything,  they  have  proved  that  the  narrative  in 
Acts  is  inconsistent  with  the  theory  that  St.  Paul  was 
thought  by  the  writer  to  have  ever  been  in  North  Galatia. 

4.  Analogy  of  First  Peter. 

Another  objection  may  be  urged  :  why  is  it  that  these 
churches  are  called  Galatian  only  in  the  epistle,  and 
nowhere  else?  But  they  are  elsewhere  referred  to  as 
Galatian.  The  superscription  of  I.  Peter  to  the  elect 
who  are  sojourners  of  the  Dispersion  in  Pontus,  Galatia, 
Cappadocia,  Asia,  and  Bithynia,  beyond  a  doubt  employs  . 
these  terms  in  the  Roman  sense.  It  sums  up  the  whole 
of  Asia  Minor  north  of  the  Taurus  range.  The  fringe  of 
coast-land  south  of  Taurus  is  excluded  ;  but  Cilicia  goes 
with  Syria,  not  with  Asia  Minor,*  and  Pamphylia  and 
Lycia  seem  not  to  have  had  important  Christian  com- 
munities in  early  times.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  take  these 
terms  in  the  popular  sense  in  which  they  were  employed 
by  some  writers,  what  an  amorphous  and  haphazard 
enumeration  it  is !  Mysia,  Phrygia,  Pisidia,  Lycaonia,  are 
omitted,  some  of  the  most  important  and  many  of  the 
earliest  Christian  churches  are  excluded,  and  precisely  the 
countries  where  evidence  of  the  strength  and  numbers  of 
the  Jews  is  strongest  are  left  out. 

Why  then  did  this  writer  use  the  Roman  nomen- 
clature? For  much  the  same  reason  as  Paul.  He  was 
writing  from  Rome,  and  he  also  had  the  mind  of  an 
organiser,  and   had  caught  a  glimpse   of    the   great   con- 

*  The  governor  of  Syria  had  a  certain  miUtary  charge  over  Cilicia, 
and  Marquardt  thinks  he  even  governed  it.  In  the  system  of  the 
Christian  Empire  the  Cilician  churches  were  subject  to  Antioch. 


VI.    The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians*  iii 

ception  of  Christianity  as  the  religion  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
He  saw  the  immense  importance  of  the  churches  of  Asia 
Minor,  he  foresaw  the  situation  in  which  they  were  about  to 
be  placed,  and  hence  he  writes  to  them  as  a  body. 

Lightfoot  fully  admits  this  interpretation  in  the  case  of 
I.  Peter  ;  but  explains  it  as  "  not  unnatural  in  one  who  was 
writing  from  a  distance  and  perhaps  had  never  visited  the 
district."  This  seems  to  me  to  explain  nothing  :  Paul  also, 
according  to  Lightfoot,  wrote  from  a  distance — viz.,  from 
Macedonia.  But  why  a  person  writing  from  a  distance 
should  prefer  the  Roman  term,  he  has  not  explained.  As 
we  contemplate  the  facts,  the  reason  lies  in  the  writer's 
habit  of  thought. 

5.  Change  in  the  Meaning  of  the  Name  Galatia. 
Why,  then,  was  an  interpretation,  which  is  so  natural  and 
so  necessary,  lost  for  so  many  centuries  and  recovered  only 
in  the  beginning  of  the  present  century?  It  was  lost 
because,  during  the  second  century,  the  term  Galatia  ceased 
to  bear  the  sense  which  it  had  to  a  Roman  in  the  first 
century.  The  whole  of  central  and  southern  Lycaonia  was, 
before  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  separated  from 
Galatia,  and  formed  into  a  province  Lycaonia,  which  was 
united  with  Isauria  and  Cilicia  under  the  title  of  "  the  three 
Eparchies,"  and  put  under  the  command  of  a  governor  of 
the  highest  rank.  From  this  time  onwards  the  true  sense 
of  the  term  Galatia  in  St.  Paul's  time  was  lost ;  and  the 
misconception  has  lasted  unchallenged  till  this  century  and 
dominant  to  the  present  day.  Among  French  scholars 
alone  *  is  the  true  view  generally  accepted. 

•  See,  e.g.,  Renan,  or  Perrot  in  his  treatise  de  Galatia  Provincia 
Romana.    In  Germany  Weizsacker  rejects  the  dominant  view. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

st.  paul  at  ephesus, 

Explanatory  Note. 

THE  following  chapter  was  originally  written  in  reply 
to  a  paper  entitled  "  Demetrius  the  Silversmith  : 
an  Ephesian  Study,"  which  was  contributed  by  the  Rev. 
Canon  Hicks  to  the  Expositor  for  June  1890,  pp.  401-422. 
My  reply  was  composed  on  the  spur  of  the  moment, 
immediately  on  reading  the  paper.*  Still  it  appears  better 
to  republish  it  substantially  as  it  was  written,  merely 
adding  some  new  evidence.  A  paper  which  fully  corre- 
sponded to  the  title  "  St.  Paul  at  Ephesus,"  would  be  very 
long,  and  would  have  to  repeat  much  that  has  been  well 
said  by  others,  and  particularly  by  Bishop  Lightfoot  in  the 
Contemporary  Review,  May  1878. 

Mr  Hicks'  paper  was  suggested  by  an  inscription  found 
at  Ephesus  by  Mr.  Wood.  It  was  published  as  a  fragment 
by  the  latter  ;  but  Mr.  Hicks  was  able  to  render  it  nearly 
complete  by  the  acute  observation  that  a  small  scrap  of 
marble  with  a  few  letters  on  it,  which  had  not  been  noticed 
by  Mr.  Wood,  fitted  on  to  the  larger  piece  which  the  latter 
had  published.  I  regret  to  have  found  myself  obliged  to 
differ  toto  ccelo  from  the  theory  which  Mr.  Hicks  based 
on  the  inscription.  Considering  how  much  we  are  agreed 
on    in   regard   to   Ephesus,  and   how  much  I  have  since 

•  It  was  published  in  the  Expositor,  July  1890. 


VII.    St.  Paul  at  Ephesus.  113 

learned  from  his  scholarly  publication  of  the  Ephesian 
inscriptions  (in  the  Ancient  Greek  Inscriptions  of  the  British 
Museum,  vol.  iii.),  it  is  almost  unfortunate  that  we  should 
present  in  this  point  (the  only  one  that  comes  before  the 
public)  the  appearance  of  disagreement.  Before  reprinting 
this  paper,  I  wrote  to  Canon  Hicks,  asking  whether  he  had 
any  further  evidence  to  confirm  any  points  in  his  case.  I 
hoped  that  we  might  settle  some  of  our  differences  out  of 
court.  I  understand  from  his  kind  and  scholarly  reply  that 
his  view  is,  like  mine,  that  the  arguments  on  the  two  sides 
should  be  fully  and  frankly  stated,  and  that  nothing  but 
good  will  come  of  active  discussion  and  criticism. 


I.  Demetrius  the  Neopoios. 
The  inscription  of  Ephesus  that  suggested  Canon  Hicks' 
paper  and  the  following  reply  is  translated  *  as  follows  : — 

"  The  Senate  [and  the  People  do  public  honour]  to  them 
that  served  as  N[eopoioi,  i.e.,  Temple-wardens]  during  the 
prytany  of ,  in  the  year  of  Demetrius  :  viz., 

"  Of  the  Ephesine  Tribe  :  Demetrius,  son  of  Menophilos, 
the  son  of  Tryphon,  of  the  thousand  Boreis  :  Thoas,  son 
of  Drakontomenes,  of  the  thousand  Oinopes. 

"  Of  the  Augustan  Tribe  :  Alexander,  etc  ;  Pythion,  etc. 

"  Of  the  Teian  Tribe  :  [Herm]as  t ;  Pythodorus. 

"  Of  the  Karenaean  Tribe  :  Eusebes  :  Tryphon. 

"Of  the  Tribe  Euonymoi :  Heraklitus  ;  Apellas. 

"Of  the  Bembinaean  Tribe:  [Prjesbon;  [another  name 
lost]."  J 

*  I  modify  very  slightly  the  words  and  arrangements  of  the  translation  given 
by  H.  To  save  space,  and  to  avoid  the  personal  reference  as  far  as  possible, 
I  shall  in  the  rest  of  the  paper  use  the  letter  H,  to  denote  Canon  Hicks'  paper. 
The  inscription  is  now  published  as  number  DLXXVIII  in  his  volume  of 
Ephesian  inscriptions. 

t  I  omit  the  description  of  this  and  the  following  officials. 

X  A  second  inscription,  unconnected  with  this  one,  was  engraved  at  a  later 
time  on  another  side  of  the  same  stone. 

8 


114  St.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

The  words  or  letters  enclosed  in  square  brackets  are 
restored  in  places  where  the  inscription  is  mutilated.  It  is 
to  be  observed  that  the  crucial  word  is  a  restoration  ;  only 
the  first  letter  of  it  remains.  It  must  be  admitted  that  the 
restoration  given  by  H.  is  in  the  highest  degree  probable, 
but  it  cannot  be  pronounced  certain.  There  were  other 
officials  whose  name  began  with  N.  :  e.g.,  Nomotheice, 
Nomophy lakes.  I  attach,  however,  no  importance  to  these 
possibilities  ;  the  reasons  excellently  stated  by  H.  show  that 
his  restoration  approximates  towards  certainty.  But,  in  the 
dearth  of  knowledge  about  the  officials  of  the  Asian  cities, 
nothing  can  be  pronounced  certain  about  them,  unless  it  is 
expressly  guaranteed  by  exact  evidence.  It  is  as  nearly 
certain  as  any  inference  on  the  subject  can  be  that  we  do 
not  know  the  names  of  all  the  various  boards  of  magistrates 
at  Ephesus.  Hence,  even  though  the  inferences  drawn  by 
H.  were  more  probable  than  they  are,  the  doubt  always 
remains  whether  the  Neopoioi  were  really  mentioned  in  the 
inscription.  But  in  this  chapter  H.'s  restoration  is  accepted, 
and  the  theory  which  he  founds  on  it  is  tested  on  its  own 
merits.* 

2.  Acts  XIX.  23-41. 

It  is  impossible  for  any  one  to  invent  a  tale  whose  scene 
lies  in  a  foreign  land  without  betraying  in  slight  details  his 
ignorance  of  the  scenery  and  circumstances  amid  which 
the  event  is  described  as  taking  place.  Unless  the  writer 
studiously  avoids   details,  and  confines  himself  to  names 


•  The  paper  originally  began  with  the  following  paragraph. 
Additions  are  here  made  to  it,  and  some  slight  modifications  are 
introduced.  It  seems  unnecessary  to  indicate  the  changes,  which 
merely  make  more  emphatic  the  views  originally  stated. 


VII.    St.  Paul  at  Ephesus.  115 

and  generalities,  he  is  certain  to  commit  numerous  errors. 
Even  the  most  laborious  and  minute  study  of  the  circum- 
stances of  the  country  in  which  he  is  to  lay  his  scene,  will 
not  preserve  him  from  such  errors.  He  must  live  long 
and  observe  carefully  in  the  country,  if  he  wishes  to  invent 
a  tale  which  will  not  betray  his  ignorance  in  numberless 
details.  Allusions  of  French  or  German  authors  to  English 
life  supply  the  readiest  illustration  of  this  principle.  Even 
after  all  the  study  that  has  been  expended  on  classical 
writers,  I  will  engage  to  prove  it  in  detail  from  almost  any 
commentary  on  a  Greek  or  Roman  author,  where  the 
commentator  ventures  beyond  mere  linguistic  exposition 
of  his  text 

Even  to  relate  with  propriety  and  accuracy  in  the 
details  an  incident  that  has  occurred  in  a  foreign  land,  is 
no  easy  task,  unless  the  narrator  has  actually  witnessed  it 
and  confines  himself  strictly  to  describing  what  he  saw. 
In  such  a  case  the  one  chance  of  safety  for  a  writer  that 
has  not  seen  the  facts,  lies  in  faithfully  reproducing  the 
narrative  of  an  eyewitness.  As  soon  as  he  ventures  to 
write  from  an  independent  standpoint,  and  to  modify  the 
account  of  his  authority,  he  is  certain  to  import  into  his 
version  some  of  those  errors  that  betray  the  foreigner. 

I  propose  to  examine,  from  this  point  of  view,  some  details 
in  the  account  given  in  Acts  of  the  riot  fomented  in  Ephesus 
against  St.  Paul  by  Demetrius  the  silversmith.  The  writer 
does  not  profess  to  be  an  eyewitness  of  the  scene,  but  he 
had  abundant  opportunity  of  learning  from  eyewitnesses  all 
the  incidents  which  he  relates  in  Acts  xix.  with  a  multitude 
of  minute  details  and  local  touches.  If  the  story  was 
invented,  only  a  person  intimately  familiar  with  Ephesus 
could  avoid  errors  that  would  provoke  a  smile  from  any 


1 1 6  S^.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

native.  The  most  careful  and  accurate  modern  students  of 
the  antiquities  of  that  country,  even  after  close  observation 
of  the  ruins,  would  be  the  first  to  profess  their  inability  to 
attain  local  verisimilitude,  if  they  had  to  invent  such  a  tale. 
The  nearest  approach  they  could  make  to  verisimilitude 
would  be  to  collect  in  their  narrative  the  details  that  they 
could  actually  trace  from  ancient  remains  and  records,  and 
studiously  to  avoid  or  slur  over  all  others.  But,  while  it 
would  be  impossible  for  any  of  us  to  attain  verisimilitude 
in  relating  such  a  story,  it  is  much  easier  for  us  to  criticise 
such  a  story  when  told  by  another,  and,  by  comparison  with 
other  sources  of  information,  to  detect  discrepancies  between 
the  details  that  occur  in  it  and  facts  that  can  be  otherwise 
ascertained.  Such  criticism  finds'plenty  of  scope  in  the  tale 
of  Paul  and  Demetrius.  While,  on  the  one  hand,  it  must 
be  confessed  that  our  information  has  hitherto  been  too 
scanty  to  justify  us  in  asserting  the  perfect  verisimilitude 
of  the  story,  yet  it  is  equally  certain  that  no  error  has 
yet  been  proved  to  exist,  and  that  a  number  of  accurate 
touches  have  been  detected. 

The  most  serious  difficulty  hithero  started  has  been  the 
reference  to  the  Asiarchs  ;  but  this  touches  an  exceedingly 
obscure  and  difficult  subject,  and  no  recent  writer  has 
ventured  to  maintain  that  the  reference  betrays  ignorance. 
It  certainly  is  difficult  to  harmonise  the  reference  with 
other  known  facts  ;  but  it  is  equally  difficult  to  harmonise 
these  facts  with  each  other.  For  my  own  part,  I  accept 
the  reference  as  entirely  accurate  and  as  a  valuable  piece 
of  evidence. 

The  chief  purpose  of  my  remarks  is  to  show  the  diffi- 
culty in  which  even  the  highest  authority  on  the  anti- 
quities of  Ephesus  was  involved,  when  he  suggested  that 


VII.    St.  Patil  at  Ephesus.  117 

the  natural  and  straightforward  interpretation  of  the 
narrative  was  incorrect,  and  ought  to  be  rejected  in  favour 
of  a  rather  artificial  and  far-fetched  explanation.  The 
theory  which  he  elaborated  only  brings  out  more  clearly 
the  coherence  and  the  direct  simplicity  of  the  narrative. 
There  is  only  one  way  of  interpreting  it,  and  that  is  as 
embodying  almost,  if  not  absolutely,  verbatim  the  words  of 
an  eyewitness. 

The  recent  edition  of  the  inscriptions  of  Ephesus  gives 
a  vast  amount  of  new  information  about  the  city,  and  adds 
greatly  to  our  power  of  criticising  the  nineteenth  chapter  of 
Acts  ;  and  it  is  noteworthy  that  the  firstfruits  of  that 
great  work  should  be  the  editor's  own  attempt  to  prove 
that  there  occurs  in  Acts  xix.  precisely  such  an  error  in 
detail  as  a  writer  ignorant  of  the  country  is  sure  to  commit 
in  inventing  a  tale  about  it.  This  view  is  fatal  to  the  whole 
theory  which  I  have  advanced  as  to  the  character  and 
composition  of  the  "  Travel-Document."  If  the  proof  is 
conclusive,  I  should  feel  constrained  to  follow  ;  but  the  view 
at  least  requires  rigorous  examination,  and  I  hope  to  show 
that  it  is  not  correct.  H.,  indeed,  infers  only  that  the 
writer  misunderstood  the  words  of  an  eyewitness  ;  but  this 
inference  does  not  exhaust  the  consequences  that  follow 
from  his  theory.  In  opposition  to  it  I  shall  try  to  prove, 
in  the  first  place,  that  the  view  held  on  this  detail  by  the 
author  of  Acts  xix.  is  involved  in  the  essence  of  the  story, 
and  must  have  been  got  by  him  from  the  account  of  the 
supposed  eyewitness  that  he  used  as  his  authority  ;  and 
secondly,  that  it  is  no  error,  but  a  true  and  accurate  idea, 
which  adds  to  the  general  verisimilitude  of  the  narrative. 

While  I  am  unable  to  agree  with  the  theory  stated  by 
H.,    I   should  like  to  acknowledge  the  high  interest  and 


ii8  S^.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

value  of  his  paper  in  the  Expositor.  The  importance  of 
closely  scrutinising  the  details  of  such  a  document  is  great, 
and  the  results,  whether  we  actually  agree  with  them  or  not, 
are  sure  to  be  highly  suggestive.  There  are  cases  where 
a  book  or  paper,  whose  actual  results  cannot  be  accepted, 
is  far  more  valuable  and  suggestive  than  many  statements 
of  certain  and  indisputable  facts  are.  H.'s  paper  is  one  of 
these  cases ;  its  value  in  method  is  quite  distinct  from  its 
value  in  results. 

3.  Demetrius  the  Neopoios  and  Demetrius  the 
Silversmith. 

I  should  be  very  ready  to  acknowledge  that,  with  regard 
to  the  identification  which  he  proposes  between  the  Deme- 
trius of  the  inscription  and  the  silvcrsm.Uh  of  Acts  xix.,  H. 
has  made  out  at  least  the  probability  of  his  case.  It  would 
be,  of  course,  almost  as  difficult  to  prove  an  identity 
between  two  persons  named  John  Smith  in  our  own 
country  as  between  two  persons  named  Demetrius  on  the 
west  coast  of  Asia  Minor.  But  if  he  is  right  in  dating 
his  inscription  about  50-60  A.D.,  then  the  case  may 
be  thus  stated.  Two  independent  documents  mention  a 
Demetrius  in  Ephesus  about  50-60  A.D.  In  each  case  the 
Demetrius  is  a  man  of  a  certain  standing  in  the  city, 
influential  and  presumably  wealthy.  In  the  one  case 
Demetrius  is  specified  as  a  "  silversmith,"  and  as  evidently 
a  leader  in  the  trade  ;  in  the  other  case  the  Demetrius  in 
question  is  designated  in  the  ordinary  way  by  his  father's 
and  grandfather's  name,  and  by  his  "  thousand."  Such 
was  the  regular  designation  of  a  citizen — the  addition  of 
the  father's  name  being  almost  universal,  while  the 
grandfather  was  less  frequently  mentioned,  chiefly   when 


VII.    St.  Paul  at  Ephesus.  119 


the  citizen  bore  one  of  the  commoner  names.  In  addition 
to  this,  the  official  position  of  the  second  Demetrius,  as 
member  and  chairman  of  a  board  of  city  magistrates,*  is 
recorded.  The  variety  of  style  in  the  references  is  quite 
natural,  and  the  fact  that  nothing  in  the  one  case  agrees 
with  anything  recorded  in  the  other  is  due  to  the  different 
character  of  the  documents,  and  affords  no  presumption 
that  the  two  persons  are  different.  The  identity  of  the 
two  is  therefore  quite  possible ;  and  a  natural  inclination 
leads  us  to  hope  that  it  may  even  be  called  probable. 

The  whole  of  the  following  remarks  are  written  on  the 
assumption  that  H.  is  right  in  dating  the  inscription  about 
Demetrius  in  the  reign  of  Nero.f  But  I  cannot  agree 
with  a  statement  which  he  made  in  his  reply,  that  "  the 
identification  of  the  Demetrius  of  the  inscription  with  the 
silversmith  of  Acts  xix.  stands  or  falls  with  the  date  to  be 
assigned  to  the  inscription."  The  identification  certainly 
falls  if  H.'s  date  is  wrong ;  but  it  does  not  necessarily 
stand  if  his  date  is  right.  It  merely  begins  in  that  case  to 
be  a  possibility.  There  were  certainly  many  Ephesians 
under  Nero  who  were  called  Demetrius  ;  and  it  would  be 
an  arbitrary  assumption  that  the  two  references  to  Deme- 
trius indicate  the  same  person,  without  assigning  some 
other  reasons  for  the  identification.  But  I  have  gone 
so  far  as  to  admit  H.'s  identification  as  probable.     It  is 


•  The  neopotot  -werQ  civil  magistrates,  not  religious  officials.  H. 
correctly  apprehends  this.  They  were,  as  he  says,  elected  by  the 
people  annually. 

t  But  on  the  date  of  the  inscription  see  the  note  at  the  end  of 
this  chapter.  I  have  here  cut  out  a  paragraph,  and  have  elsewhere 
done  the  same  where  any  passage  does  not  contribute  much  to  tiie 
effect.    No  change  in  my  opinions  is  indicated  thereby. 


I20  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

interesting,  and  I  hope  it  is  true.  I  say  not  a  word  against 
it.  The  one  reason  why  the  paper  is  written  lies  in  the 
theory  which  H.  has  founded  on  it,  and  which  may  be  false, 
even  though  the  identification  be  true. 

4.  Action  of  the  Priests  of  Artemis. 

H.'s  next  point  is,  that  the  inscription  belongs  to  the 
very  year  in  which  occurred  the  famous  scene  in  the  theatre, 
and  that  "  the  honour  therein  voted  to  him  and  his  col- 
leagues was  in  recognition  of  the  services  rendered  by  him 
and  them  on  behalf  of  the  national  goddess  " — i.e.,  as  H.  pro- 
ceeds to  show,  in  recognition  of  the  demonstration  against  the 
Apostle  which  Demetrius  (and  his  colleagues,  as  H.  would 
add,  expanding  the  narrative  in  Acts)  organised  in  the 
Great  Theatre. 

If  this  be  so,  we  must  gain  much  new  light  on  the  events 
related  in  Acts  xix.  According  to  H.'s  interpretation, 
an  entirely  new  aspect  is  put  on  the  whole  scene,  and  an 
aspect  which  is  absolutely  at  variance  with  the  character 
ascribed  to  it  in  Acts  xix.  It  is  represented  to  us  in  Acts 
as  a  spontaneous  demonstration  by  a  trade  against  the 
new  influence  that  threatened  to  undermine  its  prosperity. 
H.  makes  it  out  as  due  to  the  action  of  the  priests,* 
whose  "  jealousy  only  waited  for  an  opportunity  of  attack- 
ing the  Apostle."  "  The  plan  they  adopted  "  was  to  get 
the  board  of  Neopoioi  "  to  organise  a  demonstration 
against  the  Apostle."  Demetrius  called  together  the 
silversmiths  and  "those  engaged  in  kindred  trades.  He 
appeals  first  to  their  trade  interests,  and  soon  proceeds  to 
work  upon  their  fanaticism." 

*  In  order  to  represent  H.  quite  accurately,  I  preserve  his  own 
words  as  far  as  possible. 


VII.    St.  Paul  at  Ephesus,  121 

The  narrative  in  Acts  xix.  in  its  opening  words  states 
the  connection  between  the  silversmiths  and  Artemis  : 
Demetrius  "  made  silver  shrines  of  Diana,"  and  his  trade 
would  therefore  disappear  if  her  worship  decayed.  H., 
however,  argues  that  this  phrase  is  inexplicable  and  un- 
intelligible, and  that  it  is  a  bad  inference  from  the  words 
of  an  earlier  narrator  and  eyewitness,  who  had  described 
Demetrius  as  a  silversmith  by  trade,  holding  the  office  of 
Neopoios  of  Artemis.  The  title  was  misunderstood  by  the 
author,  who,  in  recasting  his  authority,  altered  veoiroio'i 
'AprifiiSo^i  into  iroiSiv  vaov<;  apyvpov'i  'ApTefiL8o<;.  Let  us, 
for  the  moment,  grant  this  assumption,  and  substitute  the 
new  version  for  the  old.  The  first  thing  that  then  strikes 
us  is,  that  in  this  version  the  narrative  docs  not  explain 
how  the  trade  interests  were  threatened.  Demetrius  says 
to  the  silversmiths,  "  By  this  business  we  have  our  wealth  "  : 
he  then  tells  them  that  the  worship  of  Diana  is  threatened, 
and  the  inference  is  that  their  trade  is  in  danger.  This 
speech  has  no  meaning  unless  Demetrius  is  addressing 
tradesmen  who  work  for  the  temple  ;  and  no  person  who 
conceived  the  circumstances  vividly,  from  personal  know- 
ledge, could  relate  the  story  without  putting  in  the  forefront 
an  explanation  of  the  close  relation  between  the  trade  and 
the  worship  of  Artemis.  Silversmiths  were  common  in  all 
Greek  cities  ;  the  silver  work  of  Athens  was  famous  and 
lucrative,  yet  it  had  no  relation  to  the  worship  of  Artemis. 
There  must  have  been  some  reason  why  the  silversmiths  of 
Ephesus  were  peculiarly  connected  with  the  temple,  and 
this  reason  must  have  been  stated  at  the  outset  of  the  tale, 
for  it  is  assumed  throughout  as  the  explanation  of  the 
whole  proceedings. 

We  must  then  suppose  that  the  original  authority  began 


122  Sf.  Paul  171  Asia  Minor. 

his  tale  with  a  statement  showing  the  connection  between 
the  trade,  whose  champion  Demetrius  makes  himself, 
and  the  religion  with  which  Demetrius  assumes  that  the 
interests  of  that  trade  are  identified.  This  connection  must 
either  be  the  same  as  that  which  is  assigned  in  Acts,  or  a 
different  one.  H.  evidently  considers  that  it  was  a  different 
one,  both  because  he  states  that  the  author  "misappre- 
hended the  document  before  him,"  and  because  he  con- 
siders that  Demetrius  drove  "a  brisk  trade  in  metal  statuettes" 
of  the  goddess  Artemis.  This,  then,  was  the  connection 
stated  in  the  original  authority.  We  have  to  suppose  that 
the  author  of  Acts  not  merely  misapprehended  the  meaning 
of  Neopoios,  but  also  omitted  the  explanation  of  the  con- 
nection of  the  trade  with  Artemis-worship,  and  substituted 
a  different  explanation. 

The  term  Neopoios  was  a  very  common  one,  and  the 
office  existed  not  merely  in  Ephesus,  but  in  many  others 
of  the  Greek  cities  of  Asia.  It  would  be  quite  as  strong 
a  proof  of  ignorance  to  interpret  Neopoios  as  equivalent  to 
maker  of  temples,  as  it  would  now  be  to  confuse  between 
Major-General  and  Lord  Mayor.  That  the  writer  of 
Acts  should  not  understand  the  meaning  of  Neopoios  is 
hardly  probable  ;  but  that  he  should  so  arbitrarily  and 
violently  alter  the  account  of  the  eyewitness  whom  he 
follows  is  in  the  highest  degree  improbable. 

Another  objection  occurs  to  me,  which  in  view  of  H.'s 
high  authority  on  the  antiquities  of  Ephesus,  I  hardly 
venture  to  state.  I  have  never  seen  the  phrase  feoTToto? 
^AprifjiiBo^,  which  he  assumes  to  have  been  used  in  the 
original  authority.  The  officials  in  question  are,  in  all  the 
inscriptions  which  I  remember  to  have  seen,  called  veoiroiot 
simply.     I  may  assume  that  H.  would  not  have  used  the 


VII.    St.  Paul  at  Ephesus.  123 

other  title  unless  he  could  justify  it  from  the  inscriptions  ; 
but  I  wish  he  had  quoted  an  example.  Neopoioi  of  Aphro- 
dite at  Aphrodisias*  do  not,  in  view  of  the  diversity  of 
usage  in  different  cities,  seem  to  me  a  sufficient  justification 
for  a  Neopoios  of  Artemis  at  Ephesus.  But  considering  H.'s 
accuracy  and  knowledge  of  Ephesus,  I  simply  appeal  to  him 
for  information  on  this  point.  I  maintain,  however,  that,  if 
he  cannot  justify  the  phrase  by  the  authority  of  inscriptions, 
in  which  these  officials  occur  very  frequently,  the  use  of  a 
wrong  title  would  constitute  precisely  one  of  those  errors  in 
detail,  which  might  be  used  as  a  proof  that  his  supposed 
eyewitness  was  no  eyewitness,  but  an  inventor.f 

5.  Shrines  of  Artemis. 

Is  the  phrase,  "  which  made  silver  shrines  of  Diana,"  so 
inexplicable  as  H.  supposes  ?  He  says  that  none  of  the 
commentators  have  explained  it ;  and  certainly  all  the 
references  which  he  quotes  from  them  justify  his  statement. 
The  explanation  has  always  seemed  so  obvious  that  I 
never  thought  of  looking  into  a  commentator.  I  have  been 
familiar  for  years  with  terra-cotta  shrines  of  Artemis,  and 
had  always  understood  that  the  richer  classes  bought  silver 
shrines  of  a  similar  character.  I  claim  no  originality  for 
the  suggestion,  which  I  have  always  understood  to  be 
accepted  among  archaeologists.  I  think  I  have  read  it  as 
stated   by   Professor   Ernst   Curtius  ;  and   if  I   remember 


•  Cor  pit  s  Ins  cr.  Grczc,  No.  281 1.     Cf.  Dittenberger,  Sylloge,  6. 

t  In  his  reply  H.  concedes  this  point.  There  is  not  any  authority 
extant  which  would  justify  us  in  supposing  that  a  well-informed 
person,  about  A.D.  57,  would  have  used  the  phrase  yfonoius  'Aprtfiidos 
in  speaking  about  these  city  oflBcials. 


124  •^^'  Pciul  in  Asia  Minor, 

rightly  he  actually  quoted  the  allusion  in  Acts  xix.  when 
publishing  a  monument  of  the  class  in  question.  I  speak, 
however,  from  distant  recollection,  and  as  I  write  in  Scot- 
land, where  no  scholar's  library  exists,  I  cannot  verify  the 
statement* 

Such  small  shrines  in  marble  abound,  and  they  were 
especially  used  as  dedicatory  offerings  in  the  cultus  of  that 
Asiatic  goddess  who  was  worshipped  under  the  name  of 
Artemis  at  Ephesus,  and  under  other  names,  but  with 
essential  identity  of  character,  in  many  other  cities  of 
Greek  or  semi-Greek  character.  Scores  of  examples  are 
enumerated  in  the  Archaologische  Zeitung  for  i88o,t  and 
the  number  might  easily  be  raised  to  hundreds.  Terra- 
cotta shrines  are  not  so  numerous,  partly  on  account  of 
their  more  perishable  character,  and  partly  from  the  fact 
that  in  many  cases  part  of  the  shrine  was  suppressed  and 
left  to  the  imagination,  as  was  sometimes  the  case  even  in 
marble  ;  so  that  the  shrines  thus  become  little  more  than 
statuettes  of  Artemis. 

But  the  proper  dedicatory  offering  to  this  goddess  was 
not  a  simple  statuette,  but  a  shrine.  I  have  elsewhere 
traced  the  history  of  this  style  of  representation  from  the 
remotest  period  through  its   later   developments  %  in  the 

*  Mr.  Cecil  Smith,  when  I  mentioned  the  point  to  him,  soon  found 
the  reference — viz.,  Athenische  Mittheilu7igen,  ii.,  p.  49.  The 
illustration  there  will  convince  every  one ;  it  shows  exactly  the  kind 
of  naos  which  Demetrius  made,  except  that  the  material  is  terra- 
cotta 

t  See  Conze's  article  on  Hermes-Cadmilos. 

X  In  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  1882,  p.  45  :  "The  figure  at 
Magnesia,  beside  Mount  Sipylos,  commonly  called  *  Niobe,'  is  the 
earliest  known  example  of  a  hieratic  representation  of  Cybele  common 
among  the  Greeks.     The  goddess  sits  in  a  niche  or  naiskos,  some- 


VII.    St.  Paul  at  Ephesus.  125 

cult  of  the  goddess  who  was  worshipped  in  Lydia  and 
Phrygia  under  various  names,  such  as  Artemis,  Cybele, 
Leto,  Anaitis,*  but  who  was  really  the  same  under  all 
these  names.  The  temples  built  by  Greek  architects  in 
Ephesus,  Sardis,  etc.,  were  beautiful,  but  did  not  rival  in 
actual  sanctity  the  simple  and  primitive  shrines  which  alone 
were  known  in  the  early  ages  of  the  cultus  ;  and  similarly 
the  beautiful  statues  in  which  Greek  art  idealised  their 
conception  of  Artemis  did  not  serve  the  purposes  of  actual 
ritual  so  well  as  the  primitive  xoana  of  the  nursing-mother 
(Artemis  at  Ephesus),  or  the  mother  of  all  nature  (Cybele 
at  Sardis),  or  the  other  slightly  varying  types  of  this 
goddess. 

The  innumerable  worshippers  of  the  goddess  required  in- 
numerable dedicatory  offerings  of  the  style  which  was  most 
likely  to  please  her.  A  great  city  erected  a  great  shrine 
with  a  colossal  statue  of  the  goddess  ;  private  individuals 

times  alone,  sometimes  accompanied  by  one  or  more  figures,  among 
whom  is  Hermes-Cadmilos,  the  Grecised  form  of  her  favourite  and 
companion  Atys.  In  ruder  examples  she  sits  in  stiff  fashion,  holding 
in  one  hand  the  tympanon,  in  the  other  the  phiale.  Beside  her  are 
generally  one  or  two  lions.  In  more  artistic  examples  she  has  laid 
aside  the  symbols,  which  give  such  unnatural  stiffness  to  the  ruder 
figures,  and  often  caresses  with  one  hand  the  lion,  which  climbs  up 
to  her  knee  or  lies  in  her  lap.  In  some  cases  the  lion  serves  her 
as  a  footstool ;  in  other  cases  two  sit  in  stiff  symmetry,  one  on  each 
side  of  her  throne.  Curtius  has  published  an  example  of  the  most 
developed  type,  which  he  attributes,  probably  with  justice,  to  the 
worship  of  the  Ephesian  Artemis." 

*  She  was  called  Anaitis  by  the  Persian  colonists  who  were  settled 
by  Cyrus  in  the  Hcrmus  valley,  and  who  identified  the  native  goddess 
with  the  Anaitis  of  their  own  land  {Hist.  Geogr.,  p.  124).  On  the 
identity  of  Artemis  and  Leto  in  the  Lydo-Phrygian  cults,  see  my 
papers  "  Artemis-Leto  and  Apollo-Lairbenos "  in  Juia-nal  of 
Hellenic  Studies,  1890,  pp.  216  ff. 


126  S^.  Paul  m  Asia  Minor. 

propitiated  her  with  miniature  shrines,  containing  embodi- 
ments of  her  Hving  presence.  The  vast  temple  near 
Ephesus  and  the  tiny  terra-cotta  shrine  were  equally  accept- 
able to  Artemis ;  she  accepted  from  her  votaries  offerings 
according  to  their  means.  She  dwelt  neither  in  the:  vast 
temple  nor  in  the  tiny  terra-cotta :  she  was  implicit  in 
the  life  of  nature ;  she  was  the  reproductive  power  that 
kept  the  great  world  ever  the  same  amid  the  constant  fiux 
of  things.  Mother  of  all  and  nurse  of  all,  she  was  most 
really  present  wherever  the  unrestrained  life  of  nature  was 
most  freely  manifested,  in  the  woods,  on  the  mountains, 
among  the  wild  beasts.  Her  worshippers  expressed  their 
devotion  and  their  belief  in  her  omnipresence  by  offering 
shrines  to  her,  and  doubtless  by  keeping  shrines  of  the 
same  kind  in  their  own  homes,  certainly  also  by  placing 
such  shrines  in  graves  beside  the  corpse,  as  a  sign  that 
the  dead  had  once  more  gone  back  to  the  mother  who  bore 
them.* 

The  phrase  in  Acts  xix.  informs  us  that  the  term  naot, 
literally  "  dwellings,"  f  was  appropriated  to  the  tiny  shrines 
equally  with  the  great  temple  ;  the  phrase  is  almost  unique, 
for  we  are  reduced  to  gather  all  our  information  about  this 
religion  from  scattered  hints  and  passing  allusions.  Ancient 
literature,  as  a  rule,  says  least  about  those  phases  of  ancient 
life  which  were  so  fundamental  and  so  familiar  to  all  as  to 
be  naturally  assumed  as  present  in  the  minds  of  all  readers. 

*  The  commentators  on  Acts,  and  even  Lightfoot  in  his  note  on 
Ignatius,  Ephes.  9,  omit  these  uses  of  the  shrines,  which  are  really 
the  most  important,  especially  the  employment  in  graves. 

t  Strictly  vaos  denotes  that  part  of  the  temple  in  which  the  image 
of  the  god  was  placed,  and  the  whole  temple  as  the  dwelling  of  the 
god. 


VII.    St,  Paul  at  Ephesus.  127 

Precisely  in  regard  to  these  phases  archatology  comes  to  our 
aid,  and  interprets  the  wealth  of  meaning  that  underlies 
the  literary  references.*  But  I  hope  that  I  have  shown 
how  entirely  consistent  the  phrase  in  Acts  is  with  all 
that  we  know  about  the  worship  and  nature  of  Artemis  : 
it  is  one  of  those  vivid  touches  which  reveal  the  eye- 
witness, one  of  the  incidental  expressions  which  only  a 
person  who  speaks  with  familiar  knowledge  can  use,  and 
which  are  full  of  instruction  about  popular  ideas  and 
popular  language. 

A  passage  in  a  document  of  a  slightly  later  period,  the 
letter  of  Ignatius  to  the  church  of  Ephesus,  §  9,  seems  to 
prove  that  this  use  of  the  term  naos  was  widespread.!  The 
light  thrown  by  these  words  of  Ignatius  on  the  phrase  used 
in  Acts  xix.  has  not  escaped  Lightfoot's  notice  ;  but  in  his 
commentary  there  seems  to  be  one  slight  misconception. 
He  treats  the  remarkable  picture  drawn  by  Ignatius  of  a 
religious  procession  as  if  it  were  an  intentional  picture  of 
the  great  procession  of  the  goddess  at  Ephesus.  But 
Ignatius  probably  had  never  been  at  Ephesus,  and  his 
picture  is  no  doubt  painted  after  processions  which  he 
had  seen  at  Antioch  in  Syria.  It  may,  however,  be  safely 
used  in  illustration  of  all  such  processions,  for  its  traits  are 
generic  and  not  confined  to  Antioch  or  to  Ephesus.  A 
picture    found    at    Pompeii  J   in  a  rather    mutilated   state 

*  According  to  Professor  Mommsen's  interpretation  of  a  passage 
of  Horace  {Epist.  I.,  6,  51),  it  contains  the  only  occurrence  of  the 
•word  pondera  as  the  name  for  the  stepping-stones  across  streets, 
which  are  one  of  the  first  details  that  stnke  the  modem  visitor  to 
Pompeii. 

t  avvohoi  rravrfs,  6(o(p6poi  koX  i/ao0oput. 

X  See  Helbig,  Wandgemdlde  Campaniens,  1476 ;  Schreiber, 
Kultur-historischer  Bilderatlas,  XVII.  10. 


128  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

represents  a  procession  in  honour  of  Hercules  and  Hebe ; 
and  in  it  we  see  what  Ignatius  calls  naophoroi,  persons 
carrying  a  miniature  temple  on  a  salver  or  board. 

When  we  consider  the  immense  and  widespread  influence 
of  the  Ephesian  Artemis,  we  must  acknowledge  that  vast 
numbers  of  pilgrims  coming  even  from  considerable  distances 
continually  visited  her  shrine,  and  that  vast  numbers  of 
"  naoi"  (I  accept  the  word  on  the  authority  of  Acts  xix.  as 
the  technical  term  used  in  the  trade  and  by  the  pilgrims) 
were  needed  to  supply  the  unceasing  demand.  Workers 
in  marble  and  workers  in  terra-cotta  drove  a  thriving  trade 
through  their  connection  with  the  temple,  and  this  con- 
nection was  directed  and  organised  by  Demetrius,  evidently 
as  guild-master  *  {TrapeL')(eTo  Tol<i  Te^viraL<i  ipyaalap  ovk 
6\iy7}v).'\  The  author  sums  up  these  tradesmen  in  the  phrase, 
"  the  workmen  of  like  occupation "  (Tov<i  irepl  ra  roiavra 
ipydTa<i).  We  can,  however,  well  imagine  that  rich  pilgrims 
dedicated  shrines  of  precious  metals  ;  and,  even  without  any 
other  evidence,  the  mere  statement  in  Acts  xix.  is  so 
natural  and  so  consistent  with  the  facts  just  stated,  as  to 
constitute  sufficient  proof  that  this  was   so.     The  silver- 


*  H.  has  some  excellent  remarks  on  these  guilds  in  the  cities 
of  Asia  Minor.  The  institution  still  flourishes  ;  and  each  guild  is 
directed  by  a  master.  I  have  briefly  described  the  guild  of  street- 
porters  in  Smyrna  under  the  Roman  empire  in  the  Amer.  Journ. 
Arch.,  vol.  i.  A  study  of  these  ancient  guilds  is  much  needed. 
Maue  in  his  treatise  Prcefectus  Fabrum,  and  Liebenam  in  his 
Romisches  Vereinswesen,  have  done  a  great  deal  on  this  subject. 

t  The  reading  of  Codex  Bez(s  in  this  verse  is  in  some  respects 
superior  in  vividness  to  the  accepted  text  :  ovtos  crvvadpoia-as  rovi  irtpl 
TO  Toiavra  rexviras,  f(f)T]  npos  aiTovs,''Ai>8pfs  crvvrexvi-Tai,  k.t.X.  The  form 
of  address  is  more  individualised ;  but  the  distinction  between  TexylrM 
and  (pydrai  is  lost. 


VII.    St.  Paul  at  Ephesus  129 

smiths  were  of  course  a  craft  of  higher  standing,  greater 
skill  in  delicate  work,  larger  profits,  and  therefore  greater 
wealth  and  influence,  than  the  potters  and  marble-workers. 
How  natural  then  it  is  that  it  should  be  a  silversmith  who 
gathered  together  a  meeting  of  the  associated  trades  and 
organised  a  disturbance !  The  less  educated  workmen 
follow  the  lead  of  the  great  artisan. 

On  this  view  every  detail  confirms  the  general  effect. 
We  are  taken  direct  into  the  heart  of  artisan  life  in  Ephesus; 
and  all  is  so  characteristic,  so  true  to  common  life,  and  so 
unlike  what  would  occur  to  any  person  writing  at  a  distance, 
that  the  conclusion  is  inevitable  :  we  have  here  a  picture 
drawn  from  nature,  and  copied  literally  by  the  author  of 
Acts  from  the  narrative  of  an  eyewitness. 

6.  Attitude  of  the  Ephesian  Officials  towards 

Paul. 

On  the  other  hand,  look  at  the  picture  drawn  by  H.  The 
riot  is  got  up  by  the  priests  through  the  agency  of  a  leading 
official  and  his  board  of  colleagues.  That  is  precisely  the 
idea  that  would  occur  to  any  person  inventing  such  an 
incident.  Paul  goes  to  Ephesus  ;  he  preaches  at  first  with 
effect  ;  the  priests  are  alarmed,  and  raise  a  dangerous  riot 
against  him.  Such  is  the  picture  that  every  inventor  of  the 
biography  of  a  saint  *  is  sure  to  draw  :  the  priests  at  once 
occur  to  his  mind  as  the  natural  enemies  of  his  hero.  There 
is   nothing   characteristic   and   individual    about   such    an 

*  Thoughtheearlysaintsof  Asia  Minor  are,  as  a  rule,  real  persons, 
yet  their  biographies  are,  in  general,  deficient  in  historical  value, 
being  invented,  or  at  least  profoundly  modified,  in  later  centuries. 
Only  the  discovery  of  early  evidence  can  enable  us  to  learn  anything 
definite  about  their  real  history. 

9 


130  S/.  Paul  in  Asm  Minor, 

account ;  all  is  commonplace,  and  coloured  by  the  religious 
ideas  of  a  later  time. 

The  first  way  in  which  Christianity  excited  the  popular 
enmity,  outside  the  Jewish  community,  was  by  disturbing 
the  existing  state  of  society  and  trade,  and  not  by  making 
innovations  in  religion.  The  rise  of  a  new  god  and  a  new 
worship  was  a  matter  of  perfect  indifference  to  almost 
everybody  in  the  cities  of  the  Roman  provinces.  In  the 
Graeco-Roman  world  every  one  was  quite  accustomed  to 
the  introduction  of  new  deities  from  other  countries.  The 
process  had  been  going  on  with  extraordinary  frequency, 
and  had  produced  a  sort  of  eclectic  religion  in  all  Grseco- 
Roman  cities.  The  priests  of  Artemis  looked  on  it  with 
indifference.  They  had  not  found  it  injurious  to  their 
interests  ;  rather,  the  growth  of  each  new  superstition  added 
to  the  influence  of  Artemis  and  her  priests.  Isis  was  no 
enemy  to  Artemis. 

The  narrative  of  the  New  Testament  has  led  to  a  general 
misapprehension  on  this  point.  We  are  so  accustomed  to 
the  strong  religious  feeling  of  the  Jews  and  the  intolerant 
fanaticism  with  which  they  persecuted  all  dissentient 
opinion,  that  we  are  apt  to  forget  that  this  feeling  was 
peculiar  to  them,  and  beyond  any  other  of  their  character- 
istics excited  the  wonder  of  the  tolerant,  easy-going  in- 
differentism  of  the  ordinary  pagans,  who  did  not  care  two 
straws  whether  their  neighbour  worshipped  twenty  gods 
or  twenty-one.  A  new  deity  preached  in  Ephesus,  a  new 
inmate  of  their  eclectic  pantheon  :  it  was  all  a  matter  of 
indifference. 

Gradually  people  began  to  realise  that  Christianity  meant 
a  social  revolution,  that  it  did  not  mean  to  take  its  place 
alongside  of  the  other  religions,  but  to  destroy  them.     The 


VII.    St.  Paul  at  Ephesus.  131 

discovery  was  made  in  a  homely  way,  familiar  to  us  all — 
viz.,  through  the  pocket.  Certain  trades  began,  with  all 
the  sensitiveness  of  the  money-market,  to  find  themselves 
affected.  The  gradual  progress  of  opposition  to  Christianity 
is  well  marked  in  the  Acts,  and  is  precisely  in  accordance 
with  the  above  exposition.  When  Paul  began  to  preach 
in  Asia  Minor,  he  at  first  experienced  no  opposition  except 
from  the  Jews.  In  Antioch  of  Pisidia,  in  Iconium,  in 
Lystra,  in  Thessalonica,  his  experience  was  always  the 
same.  The  Gentiles  were  indifferent  or  even  friendly,  the 
Jews  bitterly  hostile.  But  in  Philippi  occurred  the  incident 
of  the  "maid  having  a  spirit  of  divination";  and  "when 
her  masters  saw  that  the  hope  of  their  gain  was  gone," 
they  accused  Paul  as  a  Jew  of  inciting  to  illegal  conduct 
and  violation  of  the  Roman  law,  and  turned  to  their  own 
account  the  general  dislike  felt  by  both  Romans  and  Greeks 
towards  the  Jews. 

Similarly  in  Ephesus  the  first  opposition  against  Paul 
was  roused  when  the  trades  connected  with  Artemis- 
worship  felt  their  pockets  touched,  and  then  the  riot  arose. 
It  was  not  a  religious  persecution,  but  a  social  and  mer- 
cenary one.  So  far  am  I  from  thinking  with  H.,  that  "  the 
hierarchy  would  be  sensible  of  the  Apostle's  influence  before 
any  others  suspected  it,"  that  I  should  not  be  surprised  if 
priests  or  leading  supporters  of  the  worship  of  Artemis  were 
among  the  Asiarchs,  who  were  "  the  only  influential  friends 
of  Paul  at  Ephesus."  Probably  the  priests  of  Artemis 
would  act  like  the  priests  at  Lystra  ;  they  would  encourage 
the  "  revival,"  and  try  to  turn  it  to  their  own  account,  as 
in  so  many  cases  previously  such  "  revivals  "  of  religious 
feeling  had  ultimately  only  enriched  Artemis  and  her 
priesthood. 


132  S^.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

Another  contradiction  between  the  account  given  in 
Acts  xix.  and  H.'s  theory  must  be  noticed.  According  to 
the  latter,  the  officials  who  organised  the  riot  were  rewarded 
for  this  action  with  a  special  vote  of  distinction  by  the 
senate  and  the  popular  assembly.  But  according  to  the 
account  in  Acts,  it  was  a  thoroughly  disorderly  riot,  dis- 
couraged by  the  Asiarchs,  and  rebuked  by  the  city  clerk 
as  a  groundless  disturbance,  which  involved  the  magistrates 
and  the  city  in  danger  at  the  instance  of  the  Roman  law 
(see  ver.  40).  This  contradiction  alone  would  be  fatal  to 
the  theory  against  which  I  am  arguing  ;  or  rather,  if  the 
theory  be  true,  it  convicts  the  author  of  Acts  xix.  as  guilty 
of  a  most  inaccurate  and  prejudiced  account,  and  as  an 
altogether  useless  authority  for  history. 

I  prefer  then  to  follow  the  version  of  the  incident  given 
in  Acts.  Far  from  finding  that  "  the  action  of  Demetrius 
appears  in  a  new  and  far  more  significant  light  if  he  really 
was  the  Demetrius  of  the  inscription,  and  if  the  honour 
therein  voted  to  him  and  his  colleagues  by  the  senate  and 
people  of  Ephesus  was  in  recognition  of  the  services 
rendered  by  him  and  them  on  behalf  of  the  national 
goddess,"  I  think  that  this  theory  both  involves  us  in  con- 
tradiction to  the  general  situation  recorded  in  Acts,  and 
reduces  the  incident  from  a  marvellously  vivid  and  true 
picture  of  society  in  Ephesus  to  a  commonplace  and  unin- 
structive  tale. 

If  I  were  to  trust  my  own  inference  from  Acts,  I  should 
picture  the  riot  as  entirely  that  of  an  ignorant  mob, 
fomented  by  an  artisan  more  far-seeing  than  his  neighbours. 
It  was  a  riot  disapproved  of  alike  by  priests  and  by  magis- 
trates :  the  former  saw  nothing  in  Paul  to  characterize  him 
as  dangerous  to  the  goddess  (see  ver.  37)  ;  the  latter  felt 


VII.    St.  Paul  at  Epkestcs.  133 

that  the  riot  was  contrary  to  the  Roman  regulations.  The 
distinction  which  H.  makes  between  the  attitude  of  the 
Asiarchs  and  that  of  the  priests  of  Artemis  towards  Paul  is 
entirely  groundless,  and  forms  an  unfortunate  conclusion  to 
a  paragraph,  great  part  of  which  is  excellently  expressed 
and  thoroughly  true.  The  cultus  of  the  emperors  did 
indeed  prepare  the  way  for  the  Christian  Church  ;  but  this 
preparation  was  quite  involuntary.  It  co-ordinated  the 
various  religions  of  the  province  into  something  approxi- 
mating to  a  single  hierarchy.  But  to  maintain  that  the 
officials  of  the  imperial  cultus,  «>.,  the  Asiarchs,  naturally 
represented  a  different  point  of  view  from  the  priests  of 
Artemis  is  to  go  against  all  evidence.  These  officials  were 
simply  provincials,  selected  chiefly  on  account  of  their 
wealth  and  sometimes  against  their  will ;  they  did  not 
represent  the  point  of  view  of  the  Roman  governors,  but  the 
average  view  of  the  upper  classes  of  the  province  Many 
of  them  no  doubt  had  held  priesthoods  of  the  native  deities 
before  they  became  officials  of  the  imperial  cultus  ;  in  fact, 
it  is  probable  that  the  native  priesthoods  were  a  sort  of 
stepping-stone  to  the  Asiarchate.  The  attitude  of  the 
Asiarchs  towards  Paul  may  then  be  taken  as  a  fair  in- 
dication of  the  tone  of  the  educated  classes,  among  whom 
I  include  the  higher  priests.  The  attitude  of  Demetrius 
and  the  mob  was  that  of  tradesmen  whose  trade  was 
threatened,  and  who  got  up  a  demonstration  on  its  behalf. 

We  find,  then,  that  the  attitude  of  the  officials  and  of  the 
educated  part  of  the  Ephcsian  people  was  that  of  curiosity 
and  intelligent  interest  in  the  new  doctrines.  This  curiosity 
was  in  the  air  at  the  time  throughout  the  Eastern  world  ; 
and  it  is  one  of  the  signs  of  a  very  early  date  in  the 
narrative,  that  it  shows  no  trace  of  the  feeling  of  dislike  to 


134  '^^-  Pci^l  i^  Asia  Minor. 

the  new  religion  which  soon  began  to  spread  abroad.  Here 
and  always  we  find  that  the  spread  of  Christianity  at  first 
was  favoured  by  a  measure  of  intelligence  and  freedom  of 
mind  in  those  among  whom  it  was  preached. 

7.  Fate  of  the  Silver  Shrines 

One  objection  made  by  H.  must  be  met.  "  If  these 
silver  shrines  were  common  articles  of  merchandise,  such  as 
pilgrims  to  the  famous  temple  purchased  to  take  back  to 
their  homes,  then  we  might  fairly  expect  to  find  some 
specimens  still  extant  among  the  treasures  of  our  museums." 
Probably  the  chief  use  made  of  silver  shrines  was,  not  to 
take  home,  but  to  dedicate  in  the  temple.  They  were 
sold  by  the  priest  to  the  worshippers,  and  dedicated  by  the 
latter  to  the  goddess  :  similar  examples  of  trade  carried  on 
by  priests  are  too  familiar  to  need  quotation.  Why  then 
have  these  silver  shrines  all  disappeared  ?  Simply  on 
account  of  their  value.  They  have  all  gone  into  the  melting- 
pot,  many  of  them  being  placed  there  by  the  priests  them- 
selves. Dedicatory  offerings  were  so  numerous,  that  they 
had  to  be  cleared  out  from  time  to  time  to  make  room  for 
new  anathemata.  The  terra-cotta  shrines,  being  worthless, 
would  be  thrown  away  quietly,  the  silver  would  be  melted 
down.  Those  which  remained  to  a  later  period  met  the 
same  fate  at  other  hands,  less  pious,  but  equally  greedy. 
H,  indeed  speaks  apparently  of  silver  statuettes  of  Artemis 
as  common.*     The  expression,  however,  is  only  a  careless 

*  His  words  are  (p.  417) :  "  Statuettes  "  (sharply  distinguished  by 
H.  from  shrines)  "  of  the  Ephesian  Diana  were  to  be  found  every- 
where in  the  Greco- Roman  world.  In  fact,  these  statuettes  of  the 
goddess,  reproducing  all  her  hideous  Oriental  features,  may  be 
found  in  bronze,   in   silver,   or  in  terra-cotta,   in   every   European 


VII.    St.  Paul  at  Ephesus.  135 

and  probably  unintentional  one  ;  for  existing  examples  of 
them  are  so  rare  as  to  be  unknown  to  me. 


8.  Great  Artemis. 
After  Demetrius'  speech  the  excited  mob  began  to  shout 
"  Great  is  Artemis ! "  and  at  a  later  stage  they  spent  about 
two  hours  in  clamour  to  the  same  effect.  The  phrase  is 
noteworthy.  In  such  circumstances  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  some  familiar  formula  would  rise  to  their  lips  ;  it 
would  not  be  mere  chance  words  that  suggested  themselves 
to  a  whole  crowd,  but  words  which  were  well  known  to  all. 
We  are  therefore  justified  in  inferring  from  this  passage  that 
the  phrase,  "  Great  is  Artemis  ! "  was  a  stock  expression 

museum.  The  type  was  exceeding-ly  common,  and  witnessed  to  the 
wide  extent  of  the  worship.  If  the  writer  of  the  Acts  had  spoken 
of  Demetrius  as  driving  a  brisk  trade  in  these  metal  statuettes,  the 
narrative  would  have  corresponded  with  the  facts.  As  it  is,  the 
statement  that  Demetrius  was  the  maker  of  '  silver  shrines'  is  either 
to  be  set  down  as  a  loose  mode  of  expression,  or  else  it  awaits 
explanation." 

In  these  sentences  H.  does  not  explicitly  say  that  statuettes  in 
silver  may  be  found  in  every  museum.  But  he  proceeds  to  reason 
as  if  this  were  stated,  and  assumes  throughout  the  rest  of  his 
remarks  that  he  has  proved  silver  statuettes  to  be  quite  common. 
In  his  reply  to  the  article  which  is  here  reprinted,  he  says, 
"I  should  like  to  see  and  handle  some  specimens  of  metal 
shrines  of  Artemis  discovered  at  Ephesus.  In  default  of  such 
metal  shrines  or  of  any  mention  of  them  elsewhere  than  in 
this  passage,  I  made  bold  to  suggest  metal  statuettes.  Such 
metal  statuettes  are  well  known  in  modern  museums."  In  thio 
last  sentence  H.  must  either  mean  that  silver  statuettes  are  common 
in  museums,  or  he  has  abandoned  his  case.  He  insists  on  seeing 
silver  shrines,  and  till  they  are  shown  he  declines  to  believe  in 
their  existence.  In  my  criticism  I  plainly  put  the  case  to  him  that 
silver  statuettes  of  the  Ephesian  Artemis  were  unknown  to  me,  and 
quoted  in  a  footnote  Mr.  Cecil  Smith's  statement  (made  in  answer 


136  S^.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

in  the  religion,  just  as  we  might  argue  from  a  single 
loyal  demonstration  that  "  Long  live  the  Queen  !  "  was  a 
stock  phrase  in  our  own  country,  or  Xpia-riavcov  BacrCkewv 
TToXKa  ra  err)  a  current  phrase  in  Constantinople  under  the 
Byzantine  emperors.  Conversely,  if  we  can  prove  that 
"  Great  is  Artemis !  "  was  a  stock  phrase  of  Artemis-worship, 
we  shall  add  one  more  to  the  list  of  vivid,  natural,  and 
individualised  traits  in  this  scene. 

We  have  very  scanty  information  about  the  ritual  of  the 
goddess  of  Ephesus  and  of  Western  Asia  Minor  in  general ; 
but  recent  discoveries  have  added  greatly  to  our  knowledge. 
The  expressions  "  the  great  Artemis,  "  the  queen  of 
Ephesus,"*  were  formerly  proved  to  have  been  actually 

to  a  question  which  I  addressed  to  him  on  the  point),  that  in  the 
British  Museum  there  is  no  silver  statuette  of  the  Ephesian  Artemis, 
and  only  one  supposed  doubtfully  to  represent  the  Greek  Artemis. 
Metal  statuettes  of  the  Ephesian  Artemis  do  not  prove  H.'s  case, 
for  he  himself  explicitly  demands  proof  of  silverwork.  But  even 
metal  statuettes  of  the  Ephesian  Artemis  are  unknown  to  me ;  and 
I  ask  for  proof  of  H.'s  reiterated  statement,  that  they  are  common 
in  museums.  A  single  example,  or  even  two,  will  not  prove  his 
words  to  be  accurate.  Even  marble  and  terra-cotta  statuettes  of 
the  type  which  is  commonly  called  the  Ephesian  Artemis  (and 
which  is  clearly  intended  by  H.)  are,  so  far  as  my  own  experience 
goes,  rare.  I  know  of  only  four  examples  in  terra-cotta,  and  Wood 
{£^/ies.,  p.  270)  gives  an  illustration  of  a  marble  statuette  which  he 
had  seen  in  private  possession  at  Mylasa.  Baumeister's  Denkmdler 
and  Roscher's  Lexicon  der  Mythologie,  s.  v.  Artemis,  do  not 
mention  any  statuettes,  but  only  statues,  of  the  Ephesian  Artemis. 
I  believe  that  H.  has  unintentionally  exaggerated  the  importance 
of  this  type.  Representations  of  the  other  type  in  niches  are 
common  in  marble  and  terra-cotta ;  and  the  value  of  the  metal  is 
a  sufficient  explanation  why  none  in  silver  are  known.  The  silver 
figures  quoted  in  H.'s  reply  were  not  of  the  Ephesian  Artemis, 

*  T^y  fjLfyaKrjs  6(as  'Apre/uiSos,  CorJ>.  Inscr.  GrCBC,  2963  C,  :  ''^4'ia-ov 
" Avaaaa,  lb.,  6797. 


VII.    St.  Paul  at  Ephesus.  137 

used  of  the  goddess ;  but  proof  was  wanting  that  the 
epithet  "  great  "  was  so  peculiarly  and  regularly  associated 
with  her  as  to  rise  naturally  to  the  lips  of  her  worshippers 
as  a  sort  of  formula  in  her  service. 

In  1887  Mr.  Hogarth,  Mr.  Brown,  and  myself  found  the 
site  of  a  temple  dedicated  to  a  goddess  and  her  son, 
Artemis-Leto  and  Apollo-Lairbcnos,  at  the  Phrygian  city 
of  Dionysopolis.  Beside  it  we  found  numerous  inscriptions 
of  a  remarkable  type.  They  were  all  erected  within  the 
sacred  precinct  by  persons  bound  to  the  service  of  the  two 
deities.  They  agree  in  representing  the  authors  as  having 
come  before  the  god  when  polluted  with  some  physical  or 
moral  impurity  (sometimes  of  a  very  gross  kind),  and  when 
therefore  unfit  to  appear  before  the  god.  The  offenders  are 
chastised  by  the  god  (in  some  cases  at  least,  perhaps  in  all 
cases,  with  disease) ;  they  confess  and  acknowledge  their 
fault,  and  thereby  appease  the  god.  They  are  cured  of 
their  ailment,  or  released  from  their  punishment,  and  finally 
they  relate  the  facts  in  an  inscription  as  a  pattern  and  a 
warning  to  others  not  to  treat  the  god  lightly. 

In  publishing  these  inscriptions,*  I  have  drawn  out  a 
number  of  analogies  between  the  formulse  used  in  them  and 
those  hieratic  formulae  which  we  can  trace  at  Ephesus  ; 
and  have  argued  that  the  religion  of  Ephesus  and  of 
Dionysopolis  was  fundamentally   the   same.     Among  the 

•  journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  1889,  p.  216  ff.,  in  completion  of 
a  paper  by  Mr.  Hogarth,  ib.,  1887,  p.  376  flF.  In  my  paper  I  have  to 
make  one  correction  in  a  detail  of  the  fourth  inscription.  The  phrase 
'Ar^lf  'A.yadr]fji(pov  must  be  translated  "  Atthis,  wife  "  (not  daughter, 
as  I  have  rendered  it)  "of  Agathemeros."  The  impurity  alluded 
to  is  of  the  same  type  as  in  No.  5.  Mr.  Hogarth's  paper  was  right 
on  this  point,  though  the  inscription  was  imperfect  in  some  other 
points. 


138  St  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

formulae  common  to  the  two  cults  is  the  cry,  "  Great 
Apollo  !  "  "  Great  Artemis  !  "  The  former  occurs  as  the 
heading  of  one  of  these  confessions  at  Dionysopolis,  and 
was  evidently  a  regular  formula  of  invocation  addressed  to 
the  god  by  a  worshipper.  In  these  inscriptions,  and  in  an- 
other group  found  in  the  Katakekaumene,  the  great  power 
of  the  goddess  is  even  oftener  insisted  on  than  that  of 
her  son  :  e.g.,  "  I  thank  mother  Leto,  because  she  makes 
impossibilities  possible  "  is  the  exclamation  of  a  pious  epi- 
graphist  *  at  Dionysopolis,  and  in  the  Katakekaumene  we 
find  the  heading  "  Great  Anaitis  "  f  over  a  confession  of  the 
type  just  described.  The  Oriental  colonists  of  the  latter 
(as  has  already  been  remarked)  often  applied  the  Oriental 
name  Anaitis  to  the  Lydo-Phrygian  goddess. 

In  other  seats  of  Artemis-worship  we  find  that  her  great 
power  is  insisted  on  in  the  same  way.  The  Artemis  of 
the  lakes  is  called  Great  Artemis  in  an  inscription.  J  The 
Artemis  of  Therma  in  Lesbos  is  invoked  by  the  single 
phrase  "  Great  Artemis  of  Therma  "  on  a  stone  still  standing 
by  the  road  between  Mitylene  and  Therma. § 

Pamphylia  affords  a  good  parallel  to  Ephesus.  The 
cult  of  the  Pergaean  Artemis  closely  resembled  that  of  the 
Ephesian  goddess.  The  former  was  styled  the  Queen 
of  Perga,  and  the  tribe  at  Sillyon  (a  neighbouring  town), 
which  bore  the  name  of  the  goddess,  was  called  "  the  tribe 
of  the  great  one."  || 

*  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  1883,  p.  385. 

t  Smyrna  Mouseion,  No.  vk^. 

X  Hist.  Geogr.y  p.  410. 

§  P\ehn,  Lesdiaca,  p.  117;  Bulletin  de  Corresp.  Hellen.,  1880, 
p.  430. 

II  As  this  last  fact  has  never  been  observed,  so  far  as  I  know,  I 
shall  point  out  the  evidence  on  which  both  statements  rest.     In  1880 


VII.    St.  Paul  at  Ephesus.  139 

These  numerous  analogies  show  that  the  power  of  the 
Ephesian  goddess  was  insisted  on  in  the  cultus,  and  that 
her  greatness  was  vividly  present  to  the  mind  of  her 
worshippers,  and  prompted  the  cry  "  Great  Artemis."  The 
invocations  "Great  Apollo" at  Dionysopolis,  "Great  Anaitis" 
in  the  Katakekaumene,  "  Great  Artemis  "  in  Lesbos,  afford 
complete  corroboration  of  the  title  "  Great  Artemis " 
mentioned  in  Acts. 

9.  Text  of  Acts  xix.  23-41. 

Here  we  find  a  discrepancy  between  the  inscriptions  and 
the  received  text  of  Acts.  The  customary  phrase  was  an 
invocation  "  Great  Artemis,"  but  the  text  of  Acts  reads 
"  Great  is  Artemis,"  as  a  formal  assertion.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  it  would  be  a  far  more  striking  trait  if  the 
narrative  represented  the  population  as  using  the  precise 
phrase  which  has  just  been  proved  to  have  been  common 
in  their  ritual.  Also,  we  cannot  fail  to  observe  that  popular 
shouts  are  not  usually  expressed  in  the  indicative.  The 
suspicion  suggests  itself,  that  the  populace  used  their  ordinary 


I  published  in  the  journal  of  Hellenic  Studies  a  paper  on  the 
then  undeciphered  Pamphylian  alphabet,  in  which  (p.  246)  the  title 
"  Queen  of  Perga  "  was  given  as  the  explanation  of  the  enigmatic 
legend  on  some  coins  of  the  city.  This  explanation  has  been  ac- 
cepted by  almost  every  subsequent  writer,  and  may  be  regarded  as 
certain.  In  the  same  paper  (p.  253)  the  group  of  letters  MHEIAAE, 
which  occurs  several  times  in  an  inscription  of  Sillyon,  was  explained 
as  the  Pamphylian  dialetic  form  of /xtyaXj;.  The  latter  interpretation 
has  not  been  so  widely  accepted,  though  it  has  met  with  the  approval 
of  several  very  good  scholars.  A  recently  discovered  inscription  of 
Sillyon  shows  that  one  of  the  tribes  was  called  MeaXftrtf.  It  is 
evidently  named  after  the  MftdXr;  goddess.  The  inscription  is  pub- 
lished in  Bulletiti  de  Corresp.  Hellen.,  1889,  p.  486. 


140  St.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

phrase,  and  that  their  words  have  been  misrepresented  by 
a  very  sHght  alteration,  viz.,  the  duplication  of  the  letter  77, 
so  that  fxefyaXr)  "Apre/xi';  became  fieydXi]  rj  "Aprefii^.  We 
turn,  then,  to  the  manuscripts  to  see  whether  we  can  find 
any  confirmation  of  this  suspicion. 

The  best  manuscripts  are  agreed  on  this  point :  they 
read  "  Great  is  Artemis  "  ;  but  Codex  Bezce  *  preserves  the 
form  which,  as  we  see  from  the  inscriptions,  was  actually 
used  in  the  cultus.  The  latter  form,  moreover,  lends  more 
character  to  the  scene.  The  mob  for  two  hours  invoked 
with  loud  voice  the  goddess  and  queen  of  Ephesus,  but  it 
is  much  less  natural  to  represent  them  as  shouting  in  the 
streets  and  in  the  theatre  the  statement  that  Artemis  is 
great.  The  people  were  praying,  not  arguing  against  Paul's 
doctrines  ;  and  there  is  a  keen  sarcasm  in  the  way  their 
praying  is  described,  eKpa^ov  \iyovTe<i  28  and  Kpd^ovT€<i  34. 
Consistently  with  the  principle  we  have  hitherto  followed, 
we  must  give  in  this  case  the  preference  to  the  invocation, 
and  suppose  that  Codex  Bez(Z  alone  preserves  it,  while  the 
other  manuscripts  have  suffered  ;  and  the  change  has  been 
due  to  a  misunderstanding  of  the  scene,!  as  if  the  cry  were 
a  controversial  assertion  in  opposition  to  the  doctrine 
preached  by  St.  Paul.  The  preservation  of  the  correct  form 
in  Codex  Bezce  would  be  facilitated,  if  that  MS.  represents  a 


*  Alone  in  xix.  34,  supported  by  three  cursives  in  xix.  28. 

t  Probably  the  change  arose  through  an  accidental  duplication  of 
17,  and  then  spread  by  deliberate  preference  due  to  the  misunder- 
standing. If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  suppose  that  in  this  case  Codex 
Bezce  does  not  give  the  original  text,  but  an  alteration  of  the  original 
text,  due  to  the  influence  of  the  popular  formula,  this  supposition  will 
strongly  confirm  the  theory  maintained  in  Chap,  viii.,  that  the  text  of 
Codex  Bez(2  is  founded  on  a  revision  of  the  text  made  in  Asia  Minor. 


VII.    St.  Paul  at  Ephesus.  141 

text  current  in  the  province  Asia,  where  this  cry  or  prayer 
must  long  have  been  familiar  to  the  Christians. 

I  need  hardly  spend  more  time  on  the  point  The 
Ephesians  habitually  invoked  their  goddess  as  "  Great 
Artemis,"  and  their  common  formula  of  prayer  rose  to  their  ^ 
lips  on  this  occasion  in  the  theatre.  The  reading  of  Codex\ 
BezcB,  which  alone  retains  the  form  actually  used  by  the 
people,  must  here  be  preferred.  From  whatever  point  of 
view  we  contemplate  the  narrative,  the  superior  vividness 
and  suitability  of  this  interpretation  of  the  scene  becomes 
apparent ;  and,  at  the  risk  of  wearying  the  reader,  I  may 
add  one  more  consideration.  The  majority  of  the  people 
in  the  theatre  were  ignorant  of  what  was  the  matter  (xix, 
32).  They  had  heard  the  shouting  in  the  street,*  and 
had  with  the  usual  human  instinct  joined  the  crowd  and 
filled  the  theatre.  But  they  did  not  know  that  the  riot 
was  directed  against  Paul,  and  could  not  therefore  share  in 
the  feeling  which  might  have  prompted  the  argumentative 
statement,  "  Great  is  Artemis  "  ;  whereas,  when  they  had 
learned  from  the  shouts  that  something  connected  with 
the  goddess  was  on  hand,  the  customary  invocation  would 
naturally  suggest  itself  to  them. 

The  use  of  the  nominative  form  in  place  of  the  vocative 
'ApTe^L,  need  not  cause  any  surprise  or  difficulty.  The  con- 
fusion of  forms,  and  the  substitution  of  the  nominative  form 
for  the  vocative,  began  early  in  Asia  Minor  ;  and  "AprefiK 
for  "Apre/xL  was  adopted  even  in  Greece  at  no  very  late 
date.  A  similar  confusion  of  nominative  and  vocative 
forms  occurs    in    a   Cappadocian    inscription,  which    may 

•  On  this  point,  which  also  is  preserved  only  in  Codex  Bezcs,  see 
below,  p.  153. 


142  6"/.  Paul  m  Asia  Minor. 

serve  to  complete  the  proof  that  the  formula  under  con- 
sideration was  a  widely  spread  invocation.  The  inscription 
in  question  is  a  dedication  to  the  great  Cappadocian  god, 
Zeus  of  Venasa :  "  Great  Zeus  in  heaven,  be  propitious  to 
me  Demetrius"  {fjbi'ya<;  Zev<;  ev  ovpav\u>  '1<t9l\  eHXeco';  fioi 
AT]/jLr}Tpi(p).  It  lies  on  a  hilltop,  which  was  probably  sacred 
to  the  god.*  Here  we  have  the  same  formula,  introducing 
a  fully  expressed  prayer,  yet  the  nominative  form  is  used 
as  in  the  Ephesian  and  Lesbian  invocations. 

One  other  example  of  the  epithet  "  great "  may  be  added, 
as  illustrating  the  prevalence  of  the  idea  in  Asia  Minor. 
At  Laodiceia  on  the  Lycus,  some  coins  which  bear  the 
effigy  of  the  local  deity,  Zeus,  have  the  legend  Zeyc  Aceic. 
M.  Waddington  is  in  all  probability  right  in  proposing  to 
understand  this  word  as  the  Semitic  Aziza,  "mighty."  Syrian 
colonists  in  the  city  which  was  founded  by  a  Greek  king  of 
Syria  left  this  trace  of  their  language  in  the  religion  of  the  city. 

One  striking  parallel  to  the  scene  in  the  theatre  must 
not  be  omitted.  In  the  scene  on  Mount  Carmel,  the  four 
hundred  and  fifty  prophets  of  Baal  "  called  on  the  name 
of  Baal  from  morning  even  until  noon,  saying,  O  Baal, 
hear  us  .  .  .  and  they  cried  aloud,  and  cut  themselves  after 
their  manner  with  knives"  (i  Kings  xviii.  26).  Except 
for  the  wounds  inflicted  on  themselves  in  the  vehemence 
and  agony  of  Oriental  prayer,  the  loud  invocation  of  the 
prophets  is  similar  to  the  prayers  of  the  Ephesians  in  the 
theatre ;  and  it  is  highly  probable  that  even  the  epithet 
"  great "  was  used  by  the  former  as  well  as  by  the  latter. 

*  I  published  it  in  Bulletin  de  Corresp.  Hellcn.^  1883,  p.  322, 
doubting  the  connexion  with  the  worship  of  Zeus  of  Venasa.  I  have 
since  shown  that  Venasa  was  the  plain  round  this  hill,  {Hist.  Geogr., 
p.  292).     The  above  restoration,  not  eorw  or  eWt,  seems  certain. 


VII.    St.  Paul  at  Ephesus.  143 

10.  Historical  Character  of  the  Narrative, 
Acts  xix.  23-41. 

The  more  closely  we  are  able  to  test  the  story  in  Acts, 
the  more  vivid  and  true  to  the  situation  and  surroundings 
does  it  prove  to  be,  and  the  more  justified  are  we  in  pressing 
closely  every  inference  from  the  little  details  that  occur  in 
it.  I  entertain  the  strong  hope  that  the  demonstration 
which  has  now  been  given  of  its  accuracy  in  disputed 
points,  will  do  away  with  all  future  doubt  as  to  the  faithful- 
ness of  the  picture  that  it  gives  of  Ephesian  society  in  A.D. 
57.  Even  though  we  cannot  agree  with  H.'s  conclusions, 
our  best  thanks  are  due  to  him  for  directing  our  close  and 
minute  attention  to  this  most  interesting  historical  scene, 
and  to  the  inscription  he  has  so  ingeniously  pieced  together. 
In  his  paper  there  are  many  observations  and  many  passages 
of  permanent  interest  and  value  ;  and  parts  of  it  which  lie 
beyond  the  scope  of  this  chapter  give  much  information 
about  the  state  of  Ephesus  between  50  and  1 50  A.D.  The 
finest  part  of  it  is  his  proof  that  a  revival  of  paganism  in 
Ephesus  began  probably  as  early  as  A.D.  104.  In  corrobora- 
tion of  this  view  he  might  also  have  referred  to  the  series  of 
imperial  coins  struck  under  Hadrian,  and  bearing  the  name 
and  image  of  DIANA  EPHESIA.  Roman  imperial  coins 
cannot  bear  the  name  of  a  non-Roman  deity  ;  and  we 
may  therefore  see  in  them  the  proof  that  the  defence  of 
the  Ephesian  goddess  was  formally  constituted  apart  of  the 
Imperial  policy  at  or  before  this  time. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  facts  in  the  history  of  religion 
under  the  Empire  is  the  influence  that  was  exerted  by  the 
new  religion  on  the  old  ;  and  the  progress  of  discovery  is 
gathering  a  store  of  information  on  this  point,  which  will, 


144  ^^'  -P^^^^  ^^  Asia  Minor. 

at  some  future  time,  make  a  remarkable  picture.  In  the 
first  century  we  observe  a  general  tone  of  indifference  and 
careless  ease  in  the  higher  classes,  the  municipal  magistrates, 
and  even  the  priesthood.  Afterwards  this  security  is  dis- 
turbed. New  zeal  and  earnestness  are  imparted  to  paganism ; 
its  ceremonial  is  more  carefully  studied  ;  and  even  certain 
doctrines  are  adopted  from  Christianity,  and  declared  to 
have  been  always  present  in  the  old  worship. 

H.  in  his  reply  considers  that  I  have  "  overrated  the 
tolerance  of  the  local  hierarchies."*  I  have,  however,  on 
my  side  at  least  the  record  of  Acts.  The  priests  of  Zeus 
Propoleos  at  Lystra  were  the  foremost  in  paying  respect  to 
Paul  and  Barnabas,  and  in  stimulating  and  directing  the 
zeal  of  the  populace.  They  had  known  of  the  Apostles' 
preaching  for  some  considerable  time,  for  the  accepted  text 
implies  that  the  Apostles  had  been  evangelising  for  some 
time  previously,  and  the  text  of  Codex  Bezcz  asserts  that 
they  had  already  produced  much  effect  on  the  people.f 
The  priests,  however,  showed  no  jealousy.  They  were 
willing  and  ready  to  patronise  the  Apostles,  to  give  them 
place  and  honour,  and  to  use  the  revival  of  religious  feeling 
for  their  own  purposes.  I  have  simply  interpreted  the 
attitude  of  the  Ephesian  priests  according  to  the  statement 
in  Acts  xix.  37,^  and  the  contemporary  analogy  of  the 
priests  at  Lystra.  H.  quotes  against  my  view  the  opposi- 
tion offered  to  the  Christians  in  Bithynia  by  the  priests  in 
A.D.  112.     Such  opposition  is  not  indeed  recorded,  but  may 

*  Expositor,  August  1890,  p.  146. 

t  K.ai  eKivTjdri  okov  to  ttXtj^oj  eVl  ttj  SlBoxJ)  '■    addition  to  XIV.  y. 

X  Paul  had  neither  been  guilty  of  sacrilege  (thus  becoming  amen- 
able to  the  ordinary  procedure  of  the  proconsul),  nor  of  disrespect 
to  the  goddess  (thus  rousing  the  anger  of  the  priests). 


VII.   St.  Paul  at  Ephesus.  145 

safely  be  assumed.  But  H.  leaves  out  of  sight  the  difference 
caused  by  the  development  of  the  situation  since  the  period 
47-57  A.D.  The  period  of  indifference  and  toleration  had 
been  succeeded  by  that  of  apprehension  and  of  confirmed 
hostility.  H.'s  example  tells  only  against  his  own  argument.* 

•  While  I  have  written  throughout  on  the  assumption  that  the 
date  proposed  by  H.  for  the  inscription  of  Demetrius  is  correct,  I 
feel  bound  to  think  that  it  is  rather  too  early.  The  form  of  the 
symbol  2  is  not  known  to  me  before  the  second  century,  and  the 
two  instances  which  occur  of  O  substituted  for  Q  point  also  to  the 
period  of  confusion  between  these  two  letters.  The  confusion  implies 
that  they  had  ceased  to  be  distinguished  in  pronunciation,  and  it  is 
hardly  probable  that  this  had  taken  place  so  early  as  A.D.  57.  H. 
would  explain  the  substitution  of  O  for  Q  as  a  mere  fault  of  the  en- 
graver, and  not  as  the  result  of  confusion  in  the  pronunciation,  quot- 
ing the  occurrence  of  A  for  O  and  of  X  for  Y.  This  is  quite  possible  ; 
but  two  cases  of  O  for  Q  point  more  naturally  to  actual  confusion  in 
pronunciation.  I  mentioned  these  difficulties  in  a  footnote  written 
when  I  saw  the  original  marble,  and  added  to  my  article  after  it  was 
in  type.  H.  has  not  in  his  brief  reply  taken  any  notice  of  these 
difficulties.  He  rightly  insists  on  the  absence  of  Latin  names  as  a 
proof  of  early  date ;  but  in  regard  to  this  we  must  remember  that, 
in  a  thoroughly  Hellenised  city  like  Ephesus,  Greek  names  were 
used  at  all  periods  by  those  who  had  not  actually  gained  the  coveted 
prize  of  Roman  citizenship.  There  are  no  Roman  citizens  in  this 
official  inscription,  which  may  be  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Neopoioi 
were  act  officials  of  very  high  rank. 


10 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  ORIGINAL  AUTHORITY  FOR  ST.   PAUVS  JOURNEYS : 
VALUE  AND    TEXT. 

I.  Rapid  Spread  of  Christianity  in  Asia  Minor. 

IN  view  of  the  extraordinarily  powerful  effect  which  is 
described  in  Acts  as  produced  in  the  country  by  the 
preaching  of  Paul,  the  question  may  fairly  be  put  whether 
any  evidence  is  known  which  tends  either  to  corroborate  or 
to  throw  doubt  on  the  account  there  given.  It  is  very 
difficult  to  find  any  evidence  outside  of  the  Christian 
documents,  but  anything  that  is  known  points  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  new  religion  must  have  made  very 
rapid  progress  in  Asia  Minor  during  the  first  century.  The 
testimony  of  Pliny  is,  that  before  112  Christianity  had 
spread  so  widely  in  his  province  that  the  pagan  ritual  was 
actually  interrupted  and  the  temples  almost  deserted  (see 
p.  198).  Various  other  considerations*  point  to  a  similar 
result  as  having  taken  place  in  Phrygia  at  a  very  early 
time.  It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  the  new  religion  spread 
with  marvellous  rapidity  from  the  beginning  of  St.  Paul's 
preaching  in  Western  Asia  Minor.  Unless  that  were  so, 
it  is  hard  to  see  how  the  social  condition  of  Asia  Minor 
during  the  second  century  could  have  been  produced.  On 
the  other  hand,  no  evidence  of  the  early  spread  of 
Christianity  in  the  great  plains  of  the  Axylon  and  in  North 

•  E.g.f  the  Montanist  quarrel  could  hardly  arise  in  a  small  sect. 

146 


VIII.   Authority  for  St.  Pauf  s  Journeys.     147 

Galatia  is  known  to  mc  ;  and  in  regard  to  part  of  this 
region,  I  have  concluded  from  cpigraphic  evidence  that 
paganism  continued  dominant  till  the  third  or  fourth 
century.* 

With  regard  to  the  west  coast  of  Asia,  among  the  great 
Greek  cities  like  Ephesus  and  Smyrna,  the  condition  of 
things  was  midway  between  these  two  extremes.  It 
appears  probable  that  the  Christians  were  both  numerous 
and  influential  there  during  the  second  century  ;  but  they 
do  not  seem  to  have  had  the  same  dominating  influence 
that  we  must  attribute  to  them  in  Phrygia.  Can  any 
reason  be  found  for  these  apparent  variations  ?  Where  the 
Greek  spirit  and  education  were  completely  dominant, 
the  new  religion  spread  with  considerable  rapidity,  but 
a  large  part  of  the  population  was  proof  against  its 
influence.  Where  the  Greek  education  was  unknown,  the 
new  religion  seems  to  have  made  no  progress  at  all.  The 
regions  where  it  spread  most  rapidly  were  those  where  the 
people  were  becoming  aware  of  the  beauty  of  Greek  letters 
and  the  grandeur  of  Roman  government,  where  they 
were  awaking  from  the  stagnation  and  inertness  of  an 
Oriental  people,  and  their  minds  were  stirred  and  receptive 
of  all  new  ideas,  whether  Greek  philosophy  or  Jewish 
or  Christian  religion.  We  have  seen  that  St.  Paul  came 
into  South  Galatia  just  at  the  time  when  the  Roman  spirit 
was  beginning  to  permeate  the  country,  and  that  the  four 
places  where  he  is  recorded  to  have  founded  churches  were 
the  four  centres  of  Roman  influence. 

We  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  strong  hold  that 

•  See  a  paper  on  "  Phr>'gian  Inscriptions  of  the  Roman  period  "  in 
Zeitschrift fiir  vergleichende  Sprachforschung,  1887,  pp.  383,  398. 


148  St  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

Roman  ideas  had  on  the  mind  of  St.  Paul.  In  theory  he 
recognises  the  universality  of  the  Church  (Col.  iii.  11)  ;  but 
in  practice  he  goes  where  the  Roman  Empire  goes.  We 
therefore  feel  compelled  to  suppose  that  St.  Paul  had 
conceived  the  great  idea  of  Christianity  as  the  religion 
of  the  Roman  world  ;  and  that  he  thought  of  the  various 
districts  and  countries  in  which  he  had  preached  as  parts 
of  the  grand  unity.  He  had  the  mind  of  an  organiser  ; 
and  to  him  the  Christians  of  his  earliest  travels  were  not 
men  of  Iconium  and  of  Antioch — they  were  a  part  of  the 
Roman  world,  and  were  addressed  by  him  as  such. 

2.  Distinction  of  Authorship. 

Throughout  these  chapters  a  distinction  has  been  drawn 
between  the  author  of  Acts  and  the  writer  of  the  original 
document  describing  the  journeys  of  St.  Paul,  which  we 
assume  to  have  been  worked  into  the  book  as  it  has  come 
down  to  us.  This  distinction  seems  to  be  proved,  both 
by  other  reasons  which  do  not  come  within  our  present 
purpose,  and  by  the  variation  in  Acts  in  the  use  of  names 
denoting  the  districts  of  Asia  Minor.  The  original  docu- 
ment employs  these  names  in  the  Roman  sense,  while  in 
the  earlier  part  of  Acts  the  names  are  used  in  the  popular 
Greek  sense  which  was  common  in  the  century  before  and 
after  Christ.  There  was  at  that  time  great  uncertainty  in 
the  usage  of  the  names  denoting  the  great  territorial  districts 
of  Asia  Minor.  Not  merely  were  the  boundaries  of  several 
of  these  districts  very  uncertain  (so  that,  for  example,  the 
difficulty  of  drawing  a  dividing  line  between  Mysia  and 
Phrygia  was  proverbial)  ;  but  also  several  of  them  had. 
according  to  the  Roman  provincial  system,  an  extent  dif- 


VIII.    Authority  for  St.  PauVs  Journeys.     149 

ferent  from  that  which  they  had  according  to  older  history, 
ethnical  facts,  and  popular  usage.  The  only  source  of 
diversity  which  concerns  us  here  is  the  latter.  There  is 
no  distinction  of  practical  consequence  in  the  extent  of 
Lycia,  Pamphylia,  Bithynia ;  Pontus  and  Cilicia  also  do  not 
afford  any  criterion.  Galatia  and  Asia  are  the  two  provinces 
in  regard  to  which  very  serious  difference  of  usage  existed.* 

The  use  of  these  names  in  the  Travel-Document  has 
appeared  very  clearly  in  the  preceding  discussion.  It 
appears  to  agree  with  the  practice  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles. 
It  is  not  possible  to  demonstrate  that  in  the  Epistles  every 
name  is  used  in  the  Roman  sense,  where  the  Roman  and 
the  popular  sense  differ  ;  but  in  some  cases  there  is  no  room 
for  doubt,  and  the  invariable  presumption  that  the  Roman 
sense  is  intended,  is  fully  admitted  even  by  Wendt,  though 
he  is  an  advocate  of  the  North-Galatian  theory.f 

In  Actsii.  9  the  enumeration,  "  Pontus  and  Asia,  Phrygia 
and  Pamphylia,"  is  distinctly  popular  and  Greek  in  style. 
According  to  the  Roman  fashion  Phrygia  was  included  in 
Asia,  except  a  small  part  which  belonged  to  Galatia.  In 
making  such  an  enumeration  a  Roman  would  not  have 
omitted  Galatia,  nor  would  he  have  mentioned  Phrygia,  for 

*  In  Greece  a  similar  difference  existed  in  regard  to  the  names 
Achaia  and  Macedonia  ;  which  to  the  Romans  meant  two  large 
provinces,  and  to  the  Greeks  two  much  smaller  districts. 

t  So  in  the  latest  edition  of  "  Meyer's  Commentary,"  1888.  In  the 
previous  edition,  Wendt  held  that  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  was 
written  to  the  churches  of  Antioch,  etc.  But  even  in  the  latest  edition 
he  still  admits  that  Paul  used  the  provincial  names  according  to  the 
Roman  sense.  He  admits  this  even  in  the  case  of  Galatia  as  it  is 
used  in  i  Cor.  xvi.  i  (see  Comm.  on  Acts  xiii.  9)  ;  and  why  he  should 
deny  that  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  Galatia  is  used  in  the 
same  sense  as  in  i  Corinthians,  it  is  difficult  to  see. 


150  Sl  Paul  in  Asia  Minor, 

to  a  Roman  Phrygia  had  no  political  existence.  Mysia  and 
Phrygia  and  Lydia  were  in  the  Roman  sense  merely  geo- 
graphical terms  denoting  parts  of  the  province  of  Asia, 
which  he  might  sometimes  feel  himself  obliged  to  use  (as, 
e.g.,  in  Acts  xvi.  9),  in  order  to  specify  more  distinctly  some 
exact  position  within  the  province,  but  which  he  would  not 
employ  in  an  enumeration  of  countries  and  provinces  like 
Acts  ii.  9fif. 

Asia  is  a  term  about  which  it  is  very  difficult  to  decide. 
The  Roman  province  Asia  had  been  formed  in  133  B.C.,  and 
the  name  seems  to  have  soon  come  into  popular  use,  because 
there  was  no  other  term  to  denote  the  iEgean  coast  lands. 
But  during  the  first  century  before  Christ,  the  province  was 
greatly  increased  in  size,  and  it  is  very  difficult  to  determine 
after  this  time  whether  the  name  Asia  is  used  in  the  popular 
sense  of  the  .^gean  coast  lands,  or  denotes  the  entire 
Roman  province  ;  in  short,  whether  it  includes  Phrygia  or 
not.  In  Acts  ii,  9  Asia  is  pointedly  used  in  the  popular 
sense,  excluding  Phrygia. 

In  Acts  vi.  9  the  use  of  the  term  Asia  is  quite  consistent 
with  either  the  Roman  or  the  popular  sense.  The  Jews  in 
question  are  probably  those  educated  in  the  rhetorical 
schools  of  Smyrna  and  Pergamos  ;  the  Phrygian  Jews 
would  be  less  likely  to  have  received  a  philosophical 
education  and  to  engage  in  subtle  discussions,  but  they 
were  numerous,  and  may  be  included. 

There  are  only  these  two  verses  from  which  any  inference 
can  be  drawn  as  to  the  usage  in  Acts  i.-xi. ;  but  even 
one  clear  example  is  a  sufficient  proof  that  some  parts  of 
these  chapters  use  a  geographical  nomenclature  different 
from  that  which  is  employed  in  the  Travel-Document  and 
in  the  Epistles. 


VIII.   Authority  for  St.  Paul's  Journeys.     151 

On  one  point  of  great  interest  this  theory  perhaps  throws 
some  light — viz.,  on  the  abrupt  ending  of  Acts  in  the  middle 
of  St.  Paul's  imprisonment.  Probably  the  original  Travel - 
Document  was  composed  in  the  sphere  of  his  influence 
during  that  imprisonment  ?  If  that  be  so,  the  author  of 
Acts  stopped  where  his  chief  authority  stopped  :  perhaps 
he  intended  to  complete  the  tale  in  another  work,  using 
different  authorities. 

3.  Text  of  Codex  Bez^  -.  Asia  Minor. 

In  addition  to  the  points  which  have  already  been 
noticed,  it  will  be  convenient  to  examine  some  other 
passages  bearing  on  the  antiquities  of  Asia  Minor,  in  which 
Codex  Bezce  differs  from  the  received  text  of  Acts,  and 
thereafter  to  examine  some  of  the  variations  in  the  narra- 
tive of  St.  Paul's  adventures  in  Greece. 

The  radical  change  of  text  in  xvi.  9,  10,  is  very  re- 
markable. The  scene  is  described  with  a  vividness  and 
completeness  of  detail  that  almost  incline  us  to  think  that 
Codex  Bezce  gives  here  the  original  text.  But  perhaps  the 
reading  of  this  Codex  may  be  best  explained  as  an  alter- 
ation founded  on  a  tradition  still  surviving  in  the  churches 
of  Asia,  "  And  [in]  a  vision  by  night  there  appeared  to 
Paul  [as  it  were]  a  man  of  Macedonia,*  standing  [before 
his  face],  beseeching  him  and  saying,  '  Come  over  into 
Macedonia  and  help  us.'  [Awaking,  therefore,  he  related 
the  vision  to  us,  and  we  perceived  that]  the  Lord  had 
called  us  for  to  preach  the  gospel  unto  them  in  Mace- 
donia :  and  [on  the  morrow]  setting  sail,"  etc. 

In  xviii.  24  Codex  Bez(B\vA.s  ' AttoWcovlo^:  for  the  common 


•  The  changes  in  Codex  Bezcs  are  marked  by  square  brackets. 


152  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

AiToXKm.  The  latter  is  the  familiar  diminutive  or  pet-name 
of  the  former.  The  same  person  may  be  spoken  of  by  both 
names,  as  in  an  English  book  the  same  person  might  be 
spoken  of  sometimes  as  Henry,  sometimes  as  Harry.  A 
similar  example  occurs  in  the  case  of  Prisca,  as  she  is 
called  by  Paul  in  Rom.  xvi.  3,  but  who  is  generally 
known  by  the  diminutive  Priscilla.*  Apparently  the 
reviser  was  offended  by  the  use  of  the  familiar  Apollos 
in  a  passage  of  serious  and  lofty  tone,  just  as  in  a  highly 
wrought  passage  of  Burke  one  would  be  offended  by  a 
reference  to  Will  Shakespeare.  Accordingly  he  substituted 
the  full  name  Apollonius. 

In  xix.  9  the  addition  airo  wpa?  i  €Q)<i  BeKUTrj^  can  hardly 
be  explained  except  as  a  deliberate  impertinence  (which  is 
improbable),  or  as  founded  on  an  actual  tradition,  which 
was  believed  by  the  reviser  to  have  survived  in  Ephesus 
from  the  time  of  St.  Paul's  residence  there.  It  is  quite 
probable  that  this  tradition  is  true.  The  school  would  be 
open  for  Paul's  use  after  the  scholars  were  dismissed.  Now 
schools  opened  at  daybreak,  both  in  Greece  and  in  Rome. 
Martial  was  wakened  before  sunrise  by  the  noise  of  a 
school  (ix.  68,  xii.  57),  and  Juvenal  describes,  in  his  exag- 
gerated style,  the  teacher  at  work  from  midnight  onwards, 
and  the  scholars,  with  their  lamps,  standing  round  him 
(vii.  222-6,  see  Mayor's  notes).  It  is,  therefore,  not  strange 
that  school  should  be  over  one  hour  before  midday. 

In  xix.  14  Codex  Bezce  reads  vlo\  ^Kcva  rivog  tepeeo?,  in 


*  Many  examples  of  two  forms  applied  to  one  person  are  collected 
by  O.  Crusius  in  Jahrbiicher  fiir  Philologie,  1891,  p.  385  ff.  Such 
Kosenamen  imply  familiarity,  sometimes  even  vulgarity  :  my  friend 
Mr.  Neil  thinks  that  those  in  ay  are  contemptuous. 


VIII.   Authority  for  St.  PauVs  Joiwneys.     153 

place  of  the  accepted  text  ^Kevd  ^louSalov  ap-)(^bepk(o<i  kincb 
vloi  The  reviser  thought  it  impossible  that  Sceva  should 
have  been  high-priest,*  and  xix.  16  seems  to  imply  that 
there  were  only  two  sons.  Codex  Be.zcB  here  gives  a  text 
which  is  intelligent,  consistent,  and  possible :  the  accepted 
text  is  badly  expressed,  and  even  self-contradictory.  The 
context  makes  it  clear  that  Sceva  was  a  Jew,  even  though 
his  nationality  is  not  explicitly  stated  in  Codex  BezcB. 

In  xix.  28  Codex  BescB  adds  a  detail,  which  may  probably 
be  taken  as  true  to  fact.  Demetrius  had  gathered  the 
craftsmen  together  and  inflamed  them  by  a  skilful  speech. 
According  to  the  received  text,  "  They  shouted  out  saying, 
Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians ;  and  the  city  was  filled 
with  the  confusion,  and  they  rushed  with  one  accord  into 
the  theatre."  The  reviser  considered  that  the  first  meeting 
was  held  in  some  house  or  building,  whether  private  or 
public,  and  that  therefore  before  they  rushed  into  the 
theatre  they  must  have  gone  forth  into  the  street.  Accord- 
ingly he  says, "  When  they  heard  [this]  they  were  filled  with 
wrath,  [and  ran  into  the  street,]  and  kept  crying  out,  saying, 
Great  Diana  of  the  Ephesians  ;  and  the  whole  city  was 
thrown  into  confusion  f  ;  and  they  rushed,  etc."  The 
addition  increases  the  individuality  and  the  local  colour  ; 
and  possibly  an  actual  tradition,  surviving  in  Ephesus, 
fixed  the  house  or  public  stoa  where  the  preliminary 
meeting  was  held,  and  the  street  along  which  the  artisans 
ran  invoking  the  goddess. 

The  use  of  vaoKopov  {Codex  Bezce)  for  vewKopov  in  xix.  35 
is  remarkable  :  nothing  otherwise  is  known  to  suggest  that 

*  The  word  may  mean  '  belonging  to  a  high-priestly  family.' 
t  <Tvv()({j6ri  oXt)  T]  TToXtr  al(T)(^vvrjs, 


154  'S'A  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

this  form  was  used  in  Ephesus.  Coins  and  inscriptions 
have  vewKopo^  invariably.  May  we  therefore  conclude  that 
the  reviser  did  not  belong  to  Ephesus,  but  to  a  district 
where  the  strange  form  vaoKopo^  was  actually  in  use  ? 

In  XX.  4  Codex  Besce  reads  'E<j)€aioL  for  ^Aa-iavoL  In 
the  case  of  Trophimus,  we  know  from  xxi.  29  that  the 
change  is  accurate,  and  we  need  have  no  hesitation  in 
admitting  that  a  local  tradition  made  Tychicus  also  a 
native  of  Ephesus;  for  the  references  in  2  Tim.  iv.  12,  Titus 
iii.  12,  Col.  iv.  7,  Eph.  vi.  21,  are  favourable  to  this  view. 
The  desire  to  give  due  honour  to  Ephesus  in  this  case 
would  favour  the  idea  that  the  reviser  belonged  to,  or  was 
closely  connected  with,  that  city.  But  proofs  abound  of 
his  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  topography  and  cir- 
cumstances of  the  South-Galatian  churches ;  and  we  are 
bound  to  conclude  that  close  relations  and  constant  inter- 
communication were  maintained  between  the  church  of 
Ephesus  and  the  churches  that  lay  along  the  road  towards 
South  Galatia  and  Syria.  Hence  it  does  not  appear  safe 
to  infer  more  than  that  the  reviser  was  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  that  whole  group  of  churches,  and  jealous 
of  their  honour.* 

Codex  BezcB  differs  widely  from  other  MSS.  in  the 
difficult  passage,  xx.  4,  5,  6.  There  can  be  no  doubt  (i) 
that  its  text  is  clear,  consecutive,  self-consistent ;  (2)  that  it 
gives  the  proper  and  necessary  sequence  of  events  which 
the  text  of  the  other  MSS.  is  intended  to  describe  ;  (3) 
that  none  of  the  other  MSS.  give  a  clear  and  well-expressed 
version  of  the  facts.     The  conclusion  then  is  either  that 

*  Contrast  with  his  desire  to  give  due  honour  to  Ephesus  his 
desire  to  state  clearly  the  fault  of  Beroea.    (See  p.  160) 


VIII.   Authority  for  St.  Pa2irs  Journeys.     155 

Codex  Bez(E  gives  the  original  text,  or  that  it  represents  a 
revision  made  with  great  skill  and  success. 

In  XX.  15,  and  xxi.  i,  two  interesting  little  additions  are 
made  in  the  text  of  Codex  Bezce.  In  the  former  passage 
Paul  is  said  to  have  stopped  in  Trogylia  on  his  voyage 
between  Samos  and  Miletus.  In  the  latter  he  is  said  to 
have  touched  at  Myra  after  leaving  Patara  on  his  last 
voyage  to  Jerusalem.  The  first  of  these  details  is  in 
itself  highly  probable,  for  the  promontory  of  Trogyllion 
or  Trogylia  projects  far  out  between  Samos  and  Miletus, 
and  the  little  coasting  vessel  would  naturally  touch  there, 
perhaps  becalmed,  or  for  some  other  reason.*  The  second 
detail  is  also  natural  and  probable  in  a  coasting  voyage, 
and  geographically  accurate.  Moreover,  the  addition  of 
Myra  seems  to  have  been  made  before  the  extant  edition 
of  the  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla  was  composed,  and  a 
general  consent  exists  that  that  edition  was  in  its  main 
outlines  composed  about  A.D.  170  to  190,  though  personally! 

*  It  might  appear  probable  that  this  reading  was  in  the  text  used 
by  St.  Willibald,  who  sailed  along  the  same  coast  on  his  pilgrimage  to 
Jerusalem  about  A.D.  754.  He  visited  Ephesus,  and  walked  thence 
to  Pygela ;  from  Pygela  he  sailed  to  Strobolis,  and  thereafter  to 
Patara.  The  name  Strobolis  has  puzzled  the  editors  (see  the  edition 
of  the  Hod CBj[>or icon,  §  11,  in  the  "Palestine  Pilgrims'  Series"), 
who  suggest  Hierapolis  of  Phrygia.  Strobolis  is  for  (fi)r  TpcoyvXti/ 
— a  form  in  accordance  with  a  common  analogy  ;  and  some  cursive 
MSS.  of  Acts  read  SrpoyvXtw  or  SrpoyyuX/o).  Willibald,  however, 
would  use  a  Latin  Bible,  and  this  word  seems  not  to  have  penetrated 
into  the  Latin  versions.  Even  if  we  do  not  suppose  that  Willibald's 
selection  of  Strobolis  and  Patara  was  due  to  recollection  of  the 
narrative  in  Acts,  his  voyage  is  at  least  an  apt  illustration  of 
St.  Paul's  voyage,  as  showing  that  these  points  are  natural  halting- 
points  for  a  small  coasting  vessel. 

t  I  hope  to  discuss  this  interesting  work  fully  elsewhere. 


156  5/.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

the  present  writer  is  inclined  to  date  soon  after  130  the 
enlarg-ement  and  revision  of  a  much  older  text  of  the  Acta. 

4.  Text  of  Codex  Bez^-.  Europe. 

To  appreciate  the  force  of  these  results,  let  us  compare  a 
few  of  the  discrepancies  between  Codex  BezcB  and  the 
received  text  in  the  narrative  of  St.  Paul's  travels  in  Europe. 
In  xvi.  12,  according  to  the  received  text,  Philippi  is  the 
"  first  {i.e.  leading)  city  of  its  division  of  Macedonia,  a 
colonia"  ;  but  in  Codex  Bezcs  it  is  "  the  head  of  Macedonia, 
a  city,  a  colonia."*  The  latter  description  is  not  expressed 
in  the  proper  terms,  does  not  cohere  well  together,  and  is 
actually  incorrect.  The  term  "  first "  was  commonly 
assumed  by  towns  which  were,  or  claimed  to  be,  chief  of  a 
district  or  a  province  ;  and  Philippi  either  boasted,  or  was 
believed  by  the  reviser  to  boast,  of  this  distinction  ;  but  he 
is  wrong  in  assigning  to  it  the  pre-eminence  over  the  whole 
of  Macedonia.  Philippi  was  merely  first  in  one  of  the 
districts  into  which  Roman  Macedonia  was  divided,  but 
not  in  the  whole  province.  While  the  received  text  is  right, 
Codex  Bezce  shows  an  alteration  made  without  knowledge 
of  the  country  and  its  circumstances,  and  without  proper 
comprehension  of  the  text.  The  reviser,  unfamiliar  with 
the  constitution  of  the  province,  understood  MaKeSovia'i  as 
genitive  in  apposition  with  fiepiSo<;,  whereas  it  is  really 
partitive  genitive  depending  on  it ;  and  he  was  therefore  dis- 
satisfied with  the  term  fiepiSoii  as  applied  to  a  province. 
He  might  have  substituted  province  (i'7rapxici,<i)  for  district 
(/uept'So?),  but  he  attained  the  same  end  by  simply  omitting 
the  latter  word,  for  "  Macedonia  "  and  "  the  province  Mace- 

*  ijTis  iarlv  K((paXfj  ttjs  MaKfbovias  TToXty  KoXcovia. 


VII I.   Antho7'ity  for  St.  Paul's  Journeys.     157 

donia  "  are  synonymous.  For  "  first "  he  substituted  the 
term  "  head,"  which  is  less  technically  accurate.*  Now  the 
term  "  first "  was  familiar  to  him  in  the  usage  of  Asia 
Minor.f  Why  then  should  he  change  it  for  the  less  accurate 
"  head  "  ?  The  reason  lay  in  the  ambiguity  of  the  phrase, 
which  is  still  a  noted  difficulty  and  a  cause  of  disagreement 
among  scholars.  In  order  to  prevent  readers  from  taking 
the  phrase  in  the  sense  of  "  the  city  nearest  in  its  district  and 
which  they  first  reached,"  the  reviser  altered  the  expression, 
and  substituted  an  unmistakable  term  for  a  doubtful  one. 
In  all  probability,  the  person  who  made  this  change  was 
aware  that  the  interpretation  of  which  he  disapproved 
was  advocated  by  some,  and  desired  to  eliminate  the 
possibility  of  mistake.  Whether  he  was  right  in  his  view 
is  even  at  the  present  day  a  matter  of  controversy  ;  but 
his  attitude  towards  the  passage  is  clear,  and  his  change  is 
instructive  as  regards  the  principles  on  which  he  treated  the 
text  of  Acts. 

The  erroneousness  of  the  reading  in  Codex  Bezce  would  be 
St  clearer  if  we  accept  I.ightfoot's  view,  and  understand 
the   received    text  as  "  the   first  {i.e.,   first   at  which  they 

*  In  this  and  various  other  cases  Codex  Bezce  agrees  with  some 
Syrian  texts.  I  refrain  from  noticing  these  agreements,  as  leading 
too  far  into  textual  criticism.  The  constant  intercourse  maintained 
along  the  line  Antioch-Iconium-Ephesus  would  naturally  result  in  a 
close  relation  between  Asia  Minor  and  Syrian  texts. 

t  It  is  not  known  to  have  been  used  in  Macedonia  or  Achaia, 
whereas  it  is  frequent  in  Asia  and  Cilicia.  Smyrna,  and  Ephesus, 
and  Pergamos  vied  in  claiming  the  title  "first  city  of  Asia,'' 
Nicomedeia  and  Nicsea  that  of  first  of  Bithynia,  Tarsus  and 
Anazarbos  that  of  first  of  Cilicia,  or  first  of  the  three  provinces 
Cilicia,  Isauria,  Lycaonia.  Tralles  claimed  the  title  "first  of  the 
Greeks"  on  a  coin  published  by  M.  Babelon  in  Revue  Nutnism., 
1892,  p.  124. 


158  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

arrived]  in  the  district,  a  city  of  Macedonia,  a  colony."  If 
this  was  the  meaning  intended  by  the  writer,  then  the 
reviser  completely  misinterpreted  the  topographical  term, 
taking  it  in  the  sense  that  was  common  in  Asia  Minor  and 
therefore  familiar  to  him  * 

Another  case  in  which  the  reviser  has  misunderstood  the 
text  before  him  occurs  in  the  Corinthian  narrative,  xviii.  7. 
Paul  had  "  reasoned  in  the  synagogue  every  Sabbath,"  but 
when  the  Jews  opposed  him,  "he  departed  thence,  and  went 
into  the  house  of  a  certain  man  named  Titus  Justus,"  etc. 
The  meaning  is  that  Paul  left  the  synagogue,  and  held  his 
meetings  for  the  future  at  Justus'  house.  But  the  reviser 
thought  that  a  change  of  Paul's  residence  was  described, 
and    that   he   ceased   to   live  with  Aquila  (xviii.   3),  and 


*  I  do  not  like  Lightfoot's  interpretation :  I  share  the  reviser's 
objection  to  /nepi's  in  the  sense  of  province.  It  is  most  natural  that 
there  should  be  subdivisions  of  the  large  province  Macedonia,  and 
this  passage  may  be  taken  as  a  proof  that  there  were.  Even  if  the 
original  division  into  four  was  obsolete  (which  I  cannot  agree  with 
Lightfoot  in  thinking  that  Leake  has  proved,  Northern  Greece,  III., 
p.  487),  another  division  was  very  likely  to  come  into  use.  Still  less 
acceptable  is  Dr.  Hort's  remedy.  He  maintains  that  /itpiy  was  not 
used  in  the  sense  of  "  division  of  a  province,"  and  proposes  to  alter 
the  text  to  irpaTT)  ttjs  Uupi8os.  But  nfpis  is,  in  Egypt  at  least,  a 
technical  term  in  the  sense  of  "  subdivision  of  a  large  district,  or 
nome,  or  province."  For  example,  the  title  of  one  of  the  two 
Strategoi  of  the  Arsinoitic  Nome  was  arparrfybs  ttjs  'HpaKXddov 
nepiSos  (see  Wilcken  as  quoted  in  Berlin  Sitzungsberichte,  1892, 
p.  815).  I  would  accept  the  phrase  of  the  Travel- Document  as  an 
addition  to  our  knowledge  of  Macedonia,  and  infer  that  (i)  in  the 
first  century  the  province  was  sub-divided  into  p-tplSfs :  (2)  Philippi 
was  the  capital  of  a  /xepi's  :  (3)  the  phrase  in  Acts  shows  local 
knowledge :  (4)  the  thought  is  Pauline,  for  Paul  here  and  always 
presses  on  to  the  chief  centre  of  civilisation,  and  the  writer  em- 
phasises this  principle. 


VIII.   Authority  for  St.  Pauls  Jo^irneys.       159 

migrated  to  the  house  of  Justus.  Accordingly,  to  make  the 
meaning  quite  clear,  he  remodelled  the  words,  and  wrote, 
"  departing  from  Aquila's,  he  went  into  the  house  of  a 
certain  man  named  Justus."* 

In  the  European  narrative,  also,  we  find  several  places  in 
which  the  received  text  contains  short  passages  wanting  in 
Codex  BescB  :  in  xvii.  34  a  "  woman  named  Damaris  "  is 
not  in  the  Codex \\  in  xviii.  3  it  omits  "for  by  their  trade 
they  were  tent-makers  "  (may  we  presume  that  this  fact  had 
perished  from  the  Asian  tradition  ?  Paul  is  never  said  to 
have  worked  with  his  hands  in  Asia  or  Galatia)  ;  and 
in  xvii.  18  it  omits  "because  he  preached  Jesus  and 
the  resurrection."  The  last  omission  is  contrary  to  the 
usual  practice  in  this  Codex,  which  generally  lengthens  and 
emphasises  the  allusions  to  teaching.^  There  is  certainly 
nothing  in  the  teaching  described  which  would  be  thought 
unsuitable  in  the  Asian  churches ;  in  fact, an  Asian  document, 
which  is  commonly  attributed  to  the  second  century — the 
Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla  (see  pp.  155-6) — insists  on  this 
character  in  St.  Paul's  teaching. 

Where  anything  is  added  in  the  European  part  of  the 
narrative  to  the  text  of  Codex  Bezce,  it  is  either  easily 
gathered  from  the  context  (as  in  xviii.  2,  xvi.  35,  39,  40), 
or  it  further  emphasises  the  character  of  Paul's  preaching 
(xviii.  4),  or  the  intervention  of  supernatural  guidance  in 
his  course  (xvii.  1 5). 

In  a  few  cases  the  insertion  is  of  more  complicated  type  : 
e.g.y  in  xvii.  1 5  Codex  Besce  adds,  "  And  he  passed  by  Thes- 


*  fitra^us  OTTO  tov  'AxuXa,  tlarjXdfv,  k.t.X. 
t  On  this  point  see  below,  viii.,  §  5. 
t  E.g.,  xviii.  4. 


i6o  St.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

salia,  for  he  was  prevented  from  preaching  the  word  unto 
them."  The  reviser  is  struck  with  the  fact  that  Paul 
omits  Thessaly ;  he  recollects  that  on  his  second  journey  Paul 
passed  by  Phrygia  and  Mysia  without  preaching  there,  and 
he  applies  the  same  explanation  to  this  case.  He  did  not 
observe  that  in  this  case  Paul  probably  sailed  direct  from 
the  coast  of  Macedonia  to  Athens.  In  none  of  these 
additions  to  the  language  is  anything  really  added  to  the 
general  sense  of  the  passage,  with  the  single  exception  of 
xvi.  30,  where  the  added  sense  is  of  very  dubious  value. 
The  jailer  at  Philippi,  "trembling  for  fear,  fell  down  at  the 
feet  of  Paul  and  Silas,  and  brought  them  out  [after  having 
secured  the  other  prisoners],  and  said,  *  Sirs,  what  must  I 
do  to  be  saved  ?  ' "  The  clause  in  brackets,  which  is  added 
in  Codex  Bezce,  has  an  almost  comic  effect.  The  jailer 
carefully  looked  to  his  immediate  interests  before  he 
attended  to  his  future  salvation. 

It  is  perhaps  a  trait  not  without  significance  that  Codex 
Bezce  is  decidedly  less  favourable  to  the  Beroeans  than  the 
received  text  :  it  says  (xvii.  12),  "  Some  of  them  therefore 
believed,  and  some  disbelieved."  Considering  the  mutual 
jealousy  between  Greeks  of  different  districts  which  has 
characterised  their  history  alike  in  ancient  times  and  at  the 
present  day,  we  may  here  perhaps  see  that  a  native  of  Asia 
seizes  the  opportunity  of  emphasising  the  fact  that  some 
disbelieved,  whereas  the  received  text  merely  says  that 
"  many  of  them  believed."  In  the  latter  part  of  the  same 
verse  Codex  Bezce  loses  a  distinctly  individual  trait,  charac- 
teristic of  Macedonia,*  viz.,  the  prominent  part  played  by 
the  women.     It  reads,  "  And  of  the  Greeks  and  of  those  of 

*  See  Lightfoot's  note  in  his  PhiltJ>.,  p.  55,  ed.  I. 


VIII.   Authority  for  St.  Pauls  Journeys.   1 6 1 

honourable  estate,  men  and  women  in  considerable  numbers 
believed,"  instead  of  "  Also  of  the  Greek  women  of  honour- 
able estate,  and  of  men,  not  a  few." 

5.  Codex  Bez^  founded  on  a  Catholic 
Recension. 

The  omission  of  Damaris  in  Codex  Bezce  (xvii.  34)  is 
specially  remarkable.  There  seems  no  doubt  that  this 
omission  is  deliberate  and  intentional.  The  word  evcryiqiKov, 
which  occurs  here  in  Codex  Bezce  {Aiovvaio'^  [rt?]  ^ Apeoira'^iTi)'^ 
[et'o-;^7;/ia)i/],  Koi  erepoc),  seems  to  be  appropriated  to  women 
in  Acts  (compare  xvii.  12,  xiii.  50);  and  its  use  is  the  last 
remaining  trace  of  the  vanished  Damaris.  The  process  of 
change  seems  to  have  been  that  the  word  evaxv/J'Oiv  was 
added  as  a  gloss  to  her  name  under  the  influence  of  xiii.  50, 
xvii.  12;  and  then  her  name  was  cut  out,  and  the  gloss 
remained  in  a  wrong  place  in  the  text.* 

In  the  first  place  the  question  occurs,  why  Damaris  was 
cut  out.  The  omission  may  be  compared  with  the  change 
in  the  second  part  of  xvii.  12.  The  reason  for  both  changes 
is  the  same :  they  are  due  to  dislike  to  the  prominence 
assigned  to  women  in  the  accepted  text. 

Now  the  prominence  of  women  is,  as  we  have  seen,  a 
characteristic  of  the  social  system  of  Asia  Minor.  This 
feature  in  Codex  Bezce  might  therefore  seem  to  be  out  of 
keeping  with  our  theory  that  it  is  founded  on  a  revision  made 
in  that  country.  But  the  prominence  assigned  to  women 
was,  firstly,  pagan  rather  than  Christian,  and  secondly, 
heretical  rather  than  Catholic.     It  was  characteristic  of  the 

This  explanation  is  founded  on  suggestions  of  Mr.  Armitage 
Robinson. 

ZI 


1 62  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 


less  advanced  and  less  civilised  parts  of  the  country :  it 
lingered  longest  in  villages  and  small  towns  in  remote  and 
mountainous  districts ;  it  was  extirpated  or  reduced  to  a 
mere  honorary  position  at  an  early  period  in  the  more 
advanced  cities,  under  the  influence  of  the  Graeco-Roman 
civilisation.  Now  it  was  precisely  in  the  educated  parts  of 
the  country  that  Christianity  first  spread.  Thus  in  the 
second  century  the  situation  was  produced  that  the  more 
advanced  districts  were  Christian,  while  the  uncivilised 
districts  retained  their  paganism  and  their  old  mutterreckt, 
even  reckoning  descent  through  the  mother.* 

Further,  it  is  pointed  out  in  chaps,  xx.  and  xxi.  that 
various  developments  of  religious  feeling,  which  arose  in 
Asia  Minor,  were  penetrated  by  the  native  tone  and  spirit 
of  the  country,  and,  in  particular,  were  characterised  by 
prominent  position  and  influence  of  women.  In  opposition 
to  these  provincial  types,  the  Universal  and  Catholic  type 
of  Christianity  became  confirmed  in  its  dislike  of  the  pro- 
minence and  the  public  ministration  of  women.  The  dislike 
became  abhorrence,  and  there  is  every  probability  that  the 
dislike  is  as  old  as  the  first  century,  and  was  intensified 
to  abhorrence  before  the  middle  of  the  second  century. 

Under  the  influence  of  this  feeling  the  changes  in  Acts 
xvii.  12  and  34  arose  in  Catholic  circles  in  Asia  Minor. 

6.  Relation  of  Codex  Bez^  to  Asia  Minor. 
The  explanation  just  given   of  the  change  in  xvii.  34 
implies  that  some  at  least  of  the  alterations  in  Codex  Bezoe 

*  Epigraphic  proof  in  the  case  of  Dalisandos,  a  small  town  of 
Isauria,  will  be  found  in  a  forthcoming  paper  by  my  friend  Mr. 
Headlam,  in  the  special  issue  of  the  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies^ 
i8q2. 


VIII,   Authority  for  St.  Paul's  Journeys,   1 63 

arose  through  a  gradual  process,  and  not  through  the  action 
of  an  individual  reviser.  Possibly  all  the  changes  which 
have  been  discussed  in  the  preceding  pages  may  have 
arisen  in  this  way.  But  some  of  them  are  perhaps  more 
naturally  explained  as  the  work  of  a  single  individual, 
whom  I  shall  speak  of  as  the  reviser. 

The  freedom  with  which  the  reviser  treated  the  text 
proves  that  he  was  a  person  of  some  position  and  authority. 
The  care  that  he  took  to  suit  the  text  to  the  facts  of  the 
day  proves  that  he  desired  to  make  it  intelligible  to  the 
public.  The  knowledge  that  he  shows  of  the  topography 
and  the  facts  of  Asia  and  of  South  Galatia  proves  that  he 
was  intimately  acquainted  with  the  churches  from  Ephesus 
on  the  west,  to  Iconium  and  Lystra  on  the  east ;  and  the 
felicity  with  which  he  treats  the  text,  in  all  that  relates  to 
Asia,  seems  to  be  due  to  his  perfect  familiarity  with  the 
country,  for  it  deserts  him  when  he  tries  to  apply  the  same 
treatment  to  the  European  narrative.  He  shows  a  certain 
desire  to  give  Ephesus  all  due  glory,  and  to  deny  to  Beroea 
any  glory  that  she  is  not  fully  entitled  to,  which  proves  his 
Asian  bias.  He  seems  to  have  known  certain  traditions 
still  surviving  in  the  churches  of  Asia  and  South  Galatia, 
whereas  none  of  his  changes  imply  knowledge  of  any 
tradition  relating  to  Achaia  or  Macedonia. 

He  belonged  to  the  second  century,  for  he  alters  first 
century  forms  and  facts  to  suit  those  of  later  time  (xiii.  14, 
xiv.  19).  But  his  knowledge  was  gained  before  Lycaonia 
was  disjoined  from  Galatia  between  138  and  161  A.D.  As 
he  altered  the  text  freely  in  order  to  make  it  clear  to 
contemporary  readers,  he  would  certainly  have  altered  the 
phrase  "  the  Galatic  country,"  if  he  had  lived  so  long  after 
the  chancre  introduced  into  the  constitution  of  Galatia  and 


164  SL  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

Lycaonia  as  to  have  realised  the  efifect  upon  the  nomen- 
clature. It  is  conceivable  that,  if  he  was  living  in  Asia,  he 
might  not  for  some  years  realise  that  what  he  had  once 
been  familiar  with  as  the  Galatian  district  could  no  longer 
be  called  so,  and  that  the  old  phrase  was  rapidly  becoming 
unintelligible.  But  even  if  we  allow  for  this  possibility,  the 
revision  can  hardly  be  dated  later  than  A.D.  150-160. 

The  reviser  treated  his  text  with  great  freedom.  He 
therefore  cannot  have  had  any  superstitious  reverence  for 
the  mere  letter.  His  aim  was  to  make  it  clear  and  com- 
plete ;  and  for  the  latter  purpose  he  added  some  touches 
where  surviving  tradition  seemed  to  contain  trustworthy 
additional  particulars.  Apart  from  a  few  cases  in  which 
he  perhaps  had  before  him  a  better  text  than  any  other 
MS.  has  preserved,  the  value  of  the  reviser's  work  lies 
in  his  presentation  of  the  interpretation  put  upon  Acts  in 
the  schools  and  churches  of  Asia  Minor  during  the  first 
half  of  the  second  century.  The  book  existed  then  as  a 
whole,  and  was  studied  as  a  work  of  antiquity,  which  needed 
interpretation  and  modernisation  in  order  to  make  it  readily 
intelligible.  The  process  of  modernising  was  performed 
with  skill ;  it  was  applied  to  many  passages  in  which  the 
received  text  presented  real  difficulty,  and  to  a  few  where 
the  received  text  still  defies  interpretation.  In  several 
cases,  chiefly  relating  to  Asia  Minor,  it  produced  a  text 
which  is  really  smoother  and  clearer  in  expression  without 
actual  change  of  sense ;  but  in  some  cases,  relating  to  a 
foreign  country,  it  was  guided  by  ignorance,  and  misrepre- 
sented and  constructed  a  radically  false  text. 

We  can  imagine  what  would  have  been  the  result  if  this 
process  of  modernisation  had  been  applied  systematically 
for  centuries.     The  introduction  of  surviving  tradition  about 


VIII.    AiUhority  for  St.  PauVs  Journeys.   165 

matters  of  fact  (as,  for  example,  the  hours  when  St.  Paul 
taught  in  Ephcsus)  is  not  so  dangerous,  and  is  sometimes 
interesting.  But  the  reviser  considered  himself  equally 
justified  in  making  additions  warranted  by  the  doctrinal 
tradition  current  in  the  Asian  churches,  and  shows  a  distinct 
tendency  to  exaggerate  the  Divine  guidance  given  to  Paul, 
and  to  specify  more  precisely  than  was  done  in  the  text 
the  character  of  his  teaching.  We  cannot  doubt  that,  in 
all  his  changes,  the  reviser  was  guided  by  the  general  con- 
sensus of  opinion  in  the  churches  of  Asia,  and  not  by  his 
mere  individual  opinion.  But  the  results,  even  of  this  first 
revision,  are,  as  a  whole,  very  serious,  and,  if  the  process 
had  been  performed  a  second  time  a  century  later,  would 
certainly  have  been  ruinous  to  the  character  of  the  text. 
In  another  place  I  shall  try  to  show  what  was  the  effect 
of  such  a  continued  process  of  revision  in  the  case  of  a 
work  which  was  (as  I  believe)  composed  in  the  first  century, 
and  revised  after  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  which 
was  extraordinarily  popular  in  Asia  Minor,  but  which  was 
never  protected  by  the  reverence  that  attached  in  ever- 
growing degree  to  the  books  recognised  in  course  of  time 
as  canonical  and  venerated  from  the  beginning. 

If  the  text  of  Acts  was  treated  so  freely  in  Asia,  the 
question  arises  how  far  a  similar  freedom  of  treatment  was 
applied  to  it  in  other  countries.  There  is  no  reason  to 
think  that  the  Asian  churches  would  stand  alone  in  thus 
treating  the  text ;  but  there  is  reason  to  think  that  they 
would  be  bolder  than  other  churches.  During  the  century 
following  A.D.  70  they  had  a  marked  pre-eminence  in 
authority  (see  p.  171)  ;  and  they  were  no  doubt  conscious  of 
their  dignity  and  weight,  and  apparently  handled  the  sacred 
texts  more  rashly. 


1 66  5"/.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor 


POSTSCRIPT:    SpITTA'S   APOSTELGESCHICHTE. 

After  the  preceding  chapters  were  printed,  I  became 
acquainted  with  Spitta's  work,  die  Apostelgeschichte :  ihre 
Quelleii  und  deren  geschichtlicher  Wett  (Halle,  1891).  It  is 
too  late  to  make  in  these  chapters  any  use  of  the  book, 
which  I  have  only  time  to  glance  hurriedly  into  before 
sending  away  the  last  pages  of  the  Preliminary  Part.  The 
following  points  have  struck  me. 

The  distinction  in  the  usage  of  geographical  names, 
which  I  have  pointed  out.  Chap.  VIII.,  §  2,  corresponds 
to  Spitta's  distinction  of  documents  A  and  B.  A  uses 
names  in  the  Roman  sense,  B  in  the  popular  or  Greek 
sense.  The  second  part  of  xix.  10  must  be  assigned  to 
the  editor,  who  fused  A  and  B  (he  is  called  R  by  Spitta) : 
the  name  Asia  is  used  there  in  the  Roman  sense.  In 
xix.  26,  27,  Asia  is  used  in  the  popular  or  Greek  sense ;  but, 
as  it  is  there  spoken  by  the  artisan  Demetrius,  we  cannot 
quote  this  as  a  proof  of  the  character  of  B.*  It  is  remark- 
able how  rarely  the  names  of  districts  in  Asia  Minor  occur 
inB. 

The  usage  of  the  participle,  which  is  alluded  to  above, 
p.  52,  seems  to  belong  to  R  :  Spitta's  division  makes  this 
necessary  in  some  cases,  and  easy  in  all. 

Spitta's  solution  of  the  problem  connected  with  the 
account,  given  in  Galatians,  of  St.  Paul's  visits  to  Jerusalem 
is  so  simple  that  it  carries  one  away  and  compels  assent, 
at  least  for  the  moment.  If  it  be  true,  then  it  follows  that 
the  Epistle,  which  mentions  only  two  visits  to  Jerusalem, 
must  have  been  written  before  that  third  visit  which  Paul 

•  Hence  I  did  not  mention  it  in  Chap.  VIII.,  §  2. 


VIII.    Atithority  for  St.  PaitV s  Jotirneys.   167 

made  at  the  conclusion  of  his  second  journey.  This  agrees 
with  the  date  which  we  have,  on  independent  grounds, 
assigned  to  the  Epistle  (see  p.  100)  :  Paul  must  have  sent 
the  letter  to  the  Galatian  churches  either  from  Corinth  or 
from  Ephesus,  where,  during  his  brief  visit,  he  may  have 
heard  news  from  Antioch  and  Iconium.  Wendt's  argu- 
ment (see  p.  106)  shrivels  away  if  Spitta's  solution  is  correct. 

Almost  every  case  in  which,  according  to  our  arguments, 
Codex  Bez(2  presents  a  reading  superior  in  individuality 
and  accuracy  to  the  accepted  text,  belongs  to  B.  This 
is  remarkable,  and  confirms  Spitta's  view  that  B  is  inferior 
in  value  to  A  :  it  would  favour  the  view  that  a  text,  in 
which  the  accuracy  of  some  details  relating  to  Asia  Minor 
had  been  lost,  was  deliberately  improved  in  all  these 
cases.  But,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  every  instance 
in  which  we  have  to  attribute  to  a  reviser  of  the  second 
century  such  marked  improvements  in  point  of  indi- 
viduality and  local  colour  as  those  in  xiv.  13,  xix.  28, 
constitutes  a  strong  proof  of  my  theory  that  the  reviser 
whose  work  has  been  used  in  the  text  of  Codex  Bez(2  was 
intimately  acquainted  with  Asia  Minor. 

Many  improvements*  in  the  preceding  chapters  will 
become  possible  if  Spitta's  theory  be  accepted  ;  but  on 
the  whole  it  is  agreement  in  the  main  issues,  rather  than 
difference,  that  strikes  me  on  a  first  hasty  glance  into  a  few 
of  the  chapters.  In  regard  to  date,  Spitta  places  B  after 
A.D.  70  and  R  before  A.D.  100 ;  while  he  has  apparently  no 
objection  to  putting  A  almost  as  early  as  I  have  placed  the 
"original  authority  for  St.  Paul's  journeys"  (see  p.  151). 

•  Some  details  would  have  to  be  cut  out  entirely,  e.g.  the  argu- 
n.ont  advanced  as  the  lesser  evil  on  pp.  107-8,  and  the  note  p.  74. 


1 68  6*/.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor. 

The  passage  in  A,  which  I  have  found  deficient  in  clear- 
ness, occurs  at  a  junction  with  B ;  and  the  obscurity  is 
probably  due  to  some  mutilation  of  the  text  (cp.  p.  53,  and 
Spitta,  p.  171). 

Granting  Spitta's  general  theory,  I  would  take  A  as 
written  down  under  Paul's  immediate  influence  during  his 
imprisonment,  A.D.  62-64  ;  whereas  B  is  a  narrative  that 
has  passed  through  more  than  one  intermediary.  But 
much  of  B  must  ultimately  depend  on  an  eyewitness, 
though  the  details  have  sometimes  suffered  a  loss  of 
vividness.  The  argument  of  Chap.  VII.  acquires  new 
meaning,  if  Spitta  be  right,  and  I  am  glad  that  it  was 
completed  before  I  saw  his  work. 

I  now  feel  even  more  confident  than  before,  that 
Acts  xiii. — xxi.  is  an  authority  of  the  highest  character 
for  the  historian  of  Asia  Minor.  Formerly  I  looked  on  it 
with  much  suspicion,  and  refrained  entirely,  in  my  Historical 
Geography,  from  founding  an  argument  on  it.  Now  I  have 
learned  that  those  points  which  roused  suspicion  were 
perfectly  true  to  the  first  century,  but  were  misjudged  by 
me,  because  I  contemplated  them  under  the  influence  of 
prepossessions  derived  from  the  facts  of  the  second  century 


THE  CHURCH  IN  THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE. 

PART  II.— A.D.  64-170:  BEING 

LECTURES  AT  MANSFIELD    COLLEGE,   OXFORD 
MAY  AND  JUNE,    1892. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

SUBJECT  AND  METHOD. 

AN  apology  is  due  for  my  boldness  in  venturing  to 
address  such  an  audience  on  so  difficult  and  so 
vexed  a  subject.  But  I  may  almost  claim  that  the  topic 
had  been  chosen  for  me  by  those  who  had  for  a  time  the 
right  to  direct  my  studies.  In  the  task  of  exploration  in 
Asia  Minor  the  subject  was  forced  on  me :  unless  a  large 
part  of  my  materials  and  a  large  part  of  the  history 
of  the  country  were  handed  over  to  others,  this  subject 
must  engage  a  great  deal  of  my  attention.  If  there  had 
been  at  first  some  one  in  the  circle  of  my  own  friends 
ready  to  take  over  my  materials  and  to  work  them  up, 
as  there  are  still  many  who  could  do  so  with  fuller  know- 
ledge than  I  possess,  I  should  not  be  placed  in  the  difficult 
position  that  I  now  occupy.  Every  word  that  I  have  to 
say  springs  ultimately  from  the  desire  to  do  as  well  as  I 
could  the  work  assigned  to  me  in  Asia  Minor. 

How  closely  the  subject  on  which  I  venture  to  speak  is 
involved  in  the  investigation  of  the  history  of  Asia  Minor 
may  be  shown  in  a  single  sentence.  Asia  Minor,  and 
especially  the  province  of  Asia,  was  during  the  century 
following  A.D.  70,  to  use  the  words  of  Bishop  Lightfoot,* 
"  the  spiritual  centre  of  Christianity."  There  the  new 
religion    spread    most    rapidly    and    affected    the    largest 

•  Ignatius  and  Poly  carp,  I.,  p.  424. 
171 


172        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

proportion  of  the  whole  population  ;  the  conduct  of  the 
Asian  communities  during  that  period,  their  relations  with 
the  imperial  government,  with  their  pagan  neighbours,  and 
with  other  Christian  communities,  gave  to  a  considerable 
extent  the  tone  to  the  development  and  organisation  of 
their  Church.  To  discuss  the  relation  of  the  Asian  com- 
munities to  the  Empire  is  practically  to  discuss  the  relation 
of  the  Church  to  the  Empire.  This  page  of  history  must 
be  written  as  a  whole. 


I.  Aspect  of  History  here  Treated, 

The  subject  before  us  has  many  sides,  of  which  one 
alone  will  here  concern  us.  These  lectures  are  historical, 
not  theological.  It  is  to  a  page  in  the  history  of  society 
that  I  ask  your  attention,  and  not  to  a  theory  of  the 
development  of  religious  organisation,  or  doctrine,  or  ritual. 

I  want  to  take  Church  history  for  the  moment  out  of  the 
theological  domain,  and  to  look  at  it  from  another  point 
of  view.  When  it  is  treated  by  writers  whose  interests  are 
either  theological  or  anti-theological,  there  is  generally  a 
tendency  to  treat  controversies  between  sects,  and  struggles 
between  opposing  churches,  too  much  as  a  matter  of  reli- 
gious dogma.  The  diversities  of  opinion  on  points  of  doc- 
trine, often  sufifiiciently  minute  points,  are  related  in  great 
detail,  by  the  theologians  with  the  interest  of  love,  by  the 
anti-theologians  with  the  interest  of  ridicule.  But,  to  take 
an  example  from  my  own  country,  the  historian  of  Scotland 
who  described  the  differences  of  doctrine,  often  barely 
discernible  by  the  naked  eye,  between  our  innumerable 
sects,  and  left  the  reader  to  infer  that  these  were  the  sole, 
or   even  the  chief,  causes  of  division  between  the  sects, 


IX.    Subject  and  Method.  173 

would  give  a  very  inadequate  picture  of  the  facts.  He 
must  also  describe  and  explain  many  social  and  political 
differences  ;  e.g.,  he  must  not  leave  his  readers  ignorant  of 
the  fact  that  one  church  as  a  body  took  one  political  side, 
another  as  a  body  took  the  opposite  side. 

So  in  earlier  Church  history,  it  has  often  been  the  case ' 
that  differences  of  race  or  manners  were  the  cause  of 
division  between  churches  and  sects,  and  slight  differences 
of  doctrine  or  ritual  were  merely  badges  on  the  banners 
of  armies  already  arrayed  against  each  other.  I  do  not 
maintain  that  this  is  the  whole  matter,  nor  even  that  it  is 
the  chief  matter  ;  but  I  do  say  that  it  is  a  side  that  deserves 
and  will  reward  study,  and  that  it  does  not  always  receive 
its  fair  share  of  attention.  The  schism  between  the  Latin 
and  Greek  Churches  in  the  ninth  century,  the  schisms 
between  the  Greek  and  the  Armenian  and  other  Eastern 
Churches,  are  examples  of  religious  movements  which  were 
even  more  important  in  their  political  than  their  theological 
aspect. 

2.  Connexion  between  Church  History  and  the 
Life  of  the  Period. 

I  do  not  think  that  in  this  work  I  am  venturing  away 
from  my  proper  subject — viz.,  the  study  of  the  charac- 
ter and  life  of  the  Roman  Empire,  especially  in  the  eastern 
provinces.  It  is  possible  to  set  too  narrow  bounds  to  the 
study  of  Roman  life ;  and  any  bounds  are  too  narrow 
which  exclude  from  that  study  what  is  probably  its  most 
important  problem — viz.,  its  relations  to  the  system  of  belief, 
morality,  and  society  which,  beginning  in  the  eastern 
provinces,  gradually  spread  over  the  whole  Empire. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  this  opinion  as  to  the  close 


174        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

connexion  between  Church  history  and  the  general  history 
of  the  time  is  not  generally  held.  They  are  generally 
considered  to  be  unconnected  with  each  other,  and  to 
belong  to  different  fields  of  study.  There  has  existed, 
and  perhaps  still  exists,  a  widespread  opinion  that 
Christian  writings  (like  Byzantine  history)  lie  beyond  the 
pale  of  what  is  called  humane  letters,  and  that  the  classi- 
cal scholar  has  nothing  to  do  with  them.  We  are  all 
only  too  prone  to  bound  the  realm  of  humane  letters  by 
the  limits  of  our  individual  interests.  Is  it  still  necessary 
to  plead  that  a  classical  scholar  may  justifiably  spend 
some  part  of  his  time  in  reading  such  authors  as  Cyprian 
or  Tertullian,  as  interpreters  of  the  society  in  which  they 
lived,  or  such  authors  as  Basil  of  Caesareia  or  Gregory  of 
Nazianzos,  as  aids  in  understanding  the  history  of  Roman 
Cappadocia?  In  becoming  Christians,  these  writers  did 
not  cease  to  be  men  :  they  only  gained  that  element  of 
thoroughness,  sincerity,  and  enthusiasm,  the  want  of  which 
is  so  unpleasant  in  later  classical  literature ;  and  if  they 
directed  these  qualities  into  different  channels  from  those 
which  are  most  natural  now,  every  such  direction  of  our 
common  human  nature  must  be  studied  and  explained  by 
the  circumstances  of  its  time.  History  only  deepens  in 
intensity  and  interest  as  we  pass  from  the  classical  and 
come  down  towards  the  present  time.  The  only  reason 
why  it  sometimes  appears  less  interesting  is  that  the  strands 
of  life  become  more  numerous  as  time  goes  on,  and  the 
effort  to  comprehend  them  separately,  and  bring  them 
together  in  the  mind  to  form  the  complicated  thread  of 
human  history,  grows  more  serious. 

There  are  many  interests  of  the  most  fascinating  kind  in 
the  history  of  the  Roman  empire,  when  we  turn  away  from 


IX.   Subject  and  Method.  175 


the  battles  and  sieges,  the  murders  and  suicides,  the  crimes 
of  one    emperor   and    the  lofty  character  of  another — in 
short,  from  all  the  great  things  of  history.     The  machinery 
by  which  for  the  first  time  in  human  history  there  was 
constructed   a  great  and  stable  empire,  more  permanent 
than  the  strong  arm  of  the  despot  who  held  it  together; 
the  remarkable  system  by  which  such  a  splendid  series 
of  provincial    administrators   was   produced    and    trained, 
administrators  of  whom  one  of  the  greatest  scholars  Cam- 
bridge ever  sent  forth — a  scholar  whom  we  all  grudge  to 
the  politics  that  absorb  him — says  that  we  can  find  among 
them    examples    occasionally   of    cruelty,   occasionally   of 
rapacity,  but   never  of  incompetence  * :   that   magnificent 
system  is  a  fascinating  study,  but  it  is  inferior  in  human 
interest    to  the  study  of  social  phenomena.     The  widest 
democracy  of  ancient  times  was  a  narrow  oligarchy  in  com- 
parison with  our  modern  states.     But  the  ideas  which  have 
realised  themselves  among  us  as  the  rights  of  the  poorest 
and  lowest  classes  were  at  work  under  the  Roman  empire ; 
and   the   central    point  in  the  study  of  Roman  imperial 
society  is  the  conflict  of  the  new  religion  with  the  old.     By 
a  study  of  Roman  imperial  society,  I  do  not,  of  course,  mean 
superficial  talk  about  Juvenal  and  the  society  he  describes. 
What  Juvenal  considered   to  be  society  was  merely  the 
slowly  dying  governing  caste  of  earlier  Rome,  the  nobles 
who  had  conquered  the  world,  who  had  long  maintained 
their  pre-eminence  by  absorbing  into  their  number  every 
person  of  vigour  and  power  enough  to  raise  him  above  the 
level  of  the  lower  class,  but  who  at  last  paid  the  penalty 
that   every  privileged  class  seems  always  to  pay,  in  cor- 

•  Waddington,  "  Pastes  des  Provinces  Asiatiques,"  p.  18. 


176        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire, 

ruption  and  gradual  death.  Tacitus  and  Juvenal  paint 
the  deathbed  of  pagan  Rome  ;  they  have  no  eyes  to  see 
the  growth  of  new  Rome,  with  its  universal  citizenship, 
its  universal  Church  (first  of  the  Emperors,  afterwards  of 
Christ),  its  "alimentations,"  its  care  for  the  orphan  and 
the  foundling,  its  recognition  of  the  duty  of  the  State  to 
see  that  every  one  of  its  members  is  fed.  The  Empire  out- 
raged the  old  republican  tradition,  that  the  provincial  was 
naturally  inferior  to  the  Roman  ;  *  but  this,  which  was  its 
greatest  crime  in  the  eyes  of  Tacitus,  is  precisely  what 
constitutes  its  importance  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
What  we  are  in  search  of  is  the  historian  who  will  show  us 
the  state  of  things  beyond  the  exclusive  circle  of  aristocratic 
society,  among  the  working  classes  and  the  thinking  classes  ; 
who  will  discuss  the  relation  between  the  Christian  and 
his  next-door  neighbour  who  sacrificed  to  Rome  and  the 
emperor,  and  amused  himself  with  the  pageantry  of  Jupiter 
and  Artemis.  I  want  to  be  shown  what  the  middle  classes 
of  the  community  were  doing,  and  still  more  what  they 
were  thinking.  I  care  little  for  the  university  scholar  who 
immured  himself  in  the  university,  and  dabbled  in  elegant 
literature  and  gave  showy  lectures  ;  but  I  want  to  see  the 
man  of  high  university  training  who  went  out  to  move 
the  world.  I  get  little  for  my  purpose  among  the  pagan 
writers  ;  and  I  must  go  to  the  Christian  writers,  whom  I 
find  full  of  social  enthusiasm,  though  expressed  in  strange 

*  On  Horace's  protest  against  this  tendency  of  the  Empire,  of 
which  he  was  vaguely  conscious,  see  Mommsen's  speech  to  the  Berlin 
Academy  on  the  anniversary  of  the  two  emperors,  Frederick  and 
William  II.,  in  Berlin  Sitzungsber.,  January  24th,  1889.  Horace, 
though  an  adherent  of  Octavian,  never  really  abandoned  his  old 
republican  view  ;  he  admired  Augustus  as  the  restorer  of  old  Rome, 
not  as  the  maker  of  new  Rome. 


IX.    Sjibject  and  Method.  177 

and  to  me  sometimes  repellent  forms.  They  weary  me 
sometimes  with  doctrine,  when  I  want  humanity ;  but 
beneath  their  doctrine  the  man  appears,  and  when  they 
condescend  to  the  affairs  of  the  world,  they  are  instinct 
with  human  feeling.  The  greatest  of  them  often  reach 
the  level  of  thought  where  doctrine  and  life  are  fused  as 
two  aspects  of  the  same  thing. 

Placed  amid  the  uncongenial  society  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  the  Christian  Church  found  itself  necessarily 
in  opposition  to  some  parts  of  the  Roman  law  and  custom  ; 
negatively  it  refused  to  comply  with  them,  positively  it 
even  enacted  laws  for  itself  which  were  in  flat  contradic- 
tion to  the  national  laws  (as  when  Callistus,  Bishop  of 
Rome,  ordered  about  220  A.D.  that  certain  marriages  should 
be  legal,  though  the  state  considered  them  illegal).  The 
Church  was  a  party  of  reform  and  of  opposition  to  the 
government  policy,  carried  sometimes  to  the  verge  of 
revolutionary  movement.  Notable  differences  are  found 
in  this  respect  between  the  teaching  of  different  periods 
and  different  individuals.  The  question  as  to  the  point 
where  disobedience  to  the  imperial  law  became  justifiable, 
or  as  to  how  far  the  Imperial  Government  was  right  in 
trying  to  compel  obedience  and  to  maintain  order,  is 
a  very  difficult  one.  The  usual  answer,  that  he  who 
thinks  as  I  think  is  right  in  disobeying,  he  who  thinks 
otherwise  is  wrong,  is  completely  satisfactory  to  few.  We 
attempt  to  approach  the  question  from  the  imperial  point 
of  view,  and  to  follow  where  the  evidence  leads  us. 

3.  The  Authorities  :  Date. 
What  then  is  the  evidence  ?    The  answer  to  this  question 
is  of  primary  importance  in  a  subject  where  the  date,  the 

12 


178        TJie  Church  in  tJte  Roman  Empire. 

authorship,  and  the  trustworthiness  of  many  of  the  ancient 
authorities  are  all  matters  of  dispute.  A  few  words  on 
these  points  are  necessary  as  a  preliminary.  The  criticism 
applied  to  one  class  of  our  authorities — viz.,  the  writings 
that  give  (or  profess  to  give)  the  views  of  the  Christians — 
has  been  strict  and  severe  ;  it  is  very  important  that  they 
should  have  been  subjected  to  this  minute  examination, 
conducted  with  the  learning,  acuteness,  and  ingenuity 
which  belong  to  German  scholarship.  But  it  is  unfortu- 
nate that  some  scholars  should  so  habituate  themselves 
to  this  point  of  view  as  to  become  incapable  of  taking 
a  wider  historical  survey  of  the  situation  as  a  whole. 

There  are  some  documents  whose  falseness  to  the  period 
to  which  they  profess  to  belong  has  been  clearly  demon- 
strated. All  such  documents  have  certain  well-marked 
characteristics.  Some  purpose  or  intention  of  the  writer 
is  obvious  in  them  ;  and  above  all,  nothing,  or  next  to 
nothing,  for  the  historian's  purpose  can  be  inferred  from 
them.  They  have  no  reality  or  life  beneath  the  surface  ; 
or,  to  put  it  in  another  way,  they  have  no  background 
on  which,  by  closer  inspection  and  minuter  study,  other 
facts  and  figures  can  be  seen  to  live  and  move.  They 
attest  some  single  fact  in  view  of  which  they  were  com- 
posed ;  but  they  give  no  further  evidence  to  aid  the 
historian.  The  personages  are  mere  lay  figures  :  they 
have  lived  no  life ;  they  have  no  past  and  no  historical 
surroundings.  But  there  is  another  class  of  documents, 
whose  spuriousness  would  cause  a  serious  loss  to  the 
historian.  Such  documents  suggest  a  real  story  under- 
lying the  superficial  facts  :  the  characters  are  living  men, 
whose  real  experiences  in  the  world  have  caused  the  facts 
which  appear  on  the  surface  ;  and  from  these  facts  we  can 


IX,    Subject  and  Method,  179 

work  back  to  their  past  experiences,  their  surroundings, 
the  world  in  which  they  moved.  I  know  no  case  in  which 
it  has  been  demonstrated  that  such  a  document  is  spurious. 

It  is  quite  true  that  there  are  many  grave  and  serious 
difficulties  in  documents  of  this  type  ;  but  such  difficulties 
occur  in  all  historical  documents.  The  historian  has  to 
accept  them,  though  often  he  fails  entirely  to  solve  them. 
Not  a  year  passes,  hardly  a  month  passes,  in  which  the 
solution  of  some  puzzle  in  classical  antiquities  is  not 
attained  through  the  discovery  of  new  evidence  ;  and  each 
difficulty  solved  marks  an  advance  in  our  knowledge  and 
an  increase  in  our  powers.  But  many  of  them  remain  for 
the  future  to  solve  ;  with  our  present  resources  they  must 
be  accepted.  These  difficulties  often  take  the  form  of 
apparent  contradictions  between  authorities.  It  is  a  cheap 
solution  to  bring  down  the  date  of  one  authority  by  a 
century  ;  but  historians  have  found  that  this  method  of 
explanation  raises  far  more  difficulties  than  it  solves,  and 
it  has  been  practically  abandoned  in  almost  all  branches 
of  history.  In  them  the  rule  is  for  the  critic  to  test  the 
genuineness  of  documents  so  far  as  possible  apart  from  his 
own  theories  on  disputed  points,  and  frame  the  theory  on 
the  basis  of  the  documents. 

For  example,  Juvenal  and  Martial  were  contemporaries 
and  acquaintances  ;  but  it  is  very  hard  to  reconcile  and 
to  work  into  a  consistent  picture  their  allusions  to  the 
habits  and  manners  of  upper-class  Roman  society  in 
reference  to  the  formal  visits  of  courtesy  and  the  presents 
given  by  the  host  to  his  visitors  {salutatio  and  sportuld). 
Even  if  we  take  into  account  the  slight  difference  of  time, 
Martial's  writings  being  published  at  intervals  from  %6 
to  101  A.D.,  whereas  Juvenal's  first  book  (the  one  chiefly 


i8o        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

in  question)  was  published  about  103  to  105,  no  theory 
of  development  that  can  be  considered  satisfactory  has 
yet  been  offered.  Moreover,  Juvenal  expressly  claims  to 
be  describing  the  manners  of  the  reign  of  Domitian,  81 
to  96,  and  to  avoid  as  dangerous  all  references  to  the 
age  of  Trajan,  in  which  he  was  writing.  The  attempt 
to  solve  this  contradiction  by  bringing  down  the  date 
of  either  authority  a  half-century  or  a  whole  century  or 
more  would  only  arouse  ridicule ;  it  certainly  would  not 
be  thought  worth  serious  refutation. 

In  one  branch  of  history  alone  do  we  find  still  in  full 
vigour,  unaffected  by  sounder  methods  of  inquiry,  the 
superficial  and  uncritical  way  of  getting  rid  of  such  diffi- 
culties by  tampering  with  the  date  of  documents  and 
moving  them  about  like  pieces  on  a  chessboard.  Oddly 
enough,  it  is  among  those  to  whom  the  name  of  critics 
has  been  specially  applied  that  this  uncritical  method  is 
still  practised,  after  it  has  passed  out  of  credit  in  all  other 
departments  of  inquiry.  Many  consequences  of  an  un- 
expected kind  have  resulted  indirectly  from  the  practice 
of  this  method.  For  example,  it  is  now  generally  acknow- 
ledged that  the  tendency  of  the  Tubingen  school  of  criticism 
was  to  date  the  documents  and  the  facts  of  early  Christian 
history  decidedly  too  late,  and  most  recent  critics  have 
carried  back  the  documents  to  an  earlier  date.  But  the 
question  latent  in  their  minds  seems  always  to  take  the 
form,  "  How  far  back  does  clear  and  irrefragable  evidence 
compel  us  to  carry  the  documents  ?  "  They  seem  to  start 
with  the  presumption  of  a  late  date  in  their  minds,  and 
thus  always  to  have  a  certain  bias,  which  hinders  them 
from  attaining  the  purely  historical  point  of  view.  Evidence 
which  formerly  was  weighed  under  the  bias  of  a  dominant 


IX.    Subject  and  Method.  i8i 

theory  seems  to  retain,  even  among  those  who  have 
gradually  come  to  abandon  that  theory,  part  of  the  weight 
derived  from  it.  It  is,  as  I  believe,  due  to  this  bias  that 
some  German  scholars  are  now  gradually  settling  down  to 
an  agreement  in  dating  a  number  of  important  documents 
about  midway  between  the  traditional  date  and  the  date 
assigned  by  the  earlier  Tubingen  school. 

To  quote  another  example,  similar  in  character,  Neu- 
mann *  has  realised  clearly  and  argued  convincingly  that 
the  interpretation  of  Pliny's  letter  about  the  Christians 
which  was  almost  universal  in  Germany  is  wrong,  and 
that  the  letter  marks  not  the  beginning,  but  a  stage  in  the 
further  course  of  persecution.  Yet  certain  theories  f  of 
the  growth  of  church  organisation  retain  their  hold  on  him, 
although  they  were  elaborated  by  a  long  series  of  investi- 
gators, who  were  biassed  in  their  judgment  by  the  misinter- 
pretation of  that  cardinal  document,  which  Neumann  has 
more  correctly  estimated.  He  assumes  the  conclusions, 
after  having  overthrown  one  of  the  premises. 

•  It  is  impossible  to  avoid  frequent  references  to  Neumann's  ad- 
mirable work  on  "The  Roman  State  and  the  Universal  Church  " 
(Part  I,  Leipzig,  1890).  It  is  an  excellent  collection  of  materials : 
much  of  what  he  says  I  agree  with,  and  shall  as  far  as  possible 
avoid  repeating  ;  but  his  general  view  of  the  subject  differs  greatly 
from  mine.  As  the  book  is  widely  known,  I  shall  mention  also 
some  details  in  which  his  interpretation  of  the  ancient  authorities 
differs  from  that  which  is  assumed  in  this  book. 

t  These  theories  have  affected  his  view  throughout.  The  heroic 
dogmatism  of  his  reference  on  p.  57  to  the  letter  of  Ignatius  to  the 
Smymjeans  is  a  fair  example  :  if  the  word  "  universal  "  (Ka6o\iKrf), 
applied  to  the  Church,  occurs  in  it,  the  author  cannot  be  Ignatius 
of  Antioch.  Where  proof  is  defective,  Neumann  has  not  risen 
superior  to  the  method  of  supplying  the  defect  by  increased  boldness 
in  assertion. 


1 82        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

With  the  question  of  date,  that  of  authorship  is  to  a 
certain  extent  bound  up  ;  so  far  as  it  is  a  separate  question, 
it  hardly  concerns  our  purpose.  For  example,  the  question 
whether  the  Epistles  attributed  to  St.  John  were  written 
by  the  Apostle  will  not  practically  affect  the  historian's 
estimate  of  their  value,  if  once  he  is  convinced  that  they 
are  first-century  productions. 

4.  The  Authorities  :  Trustworthiness. 

With  regard  to  the  trustworthiness  of  the  documents, 
some  words  also  are  needed.  We  have  now  for  ever 
passed  beyond  that  stage  of  historical  investigation  which 
consisted  in  comparing  the  statements  of  Christian  docu- 
ments with  the  Roman  writers,  and  condemning  the 
former  in  every  point  where  they  differed  from  the 
authoritative  standard  of  the  latter.  We  have  now  recog- 
nised, once  and  for  all,  that  the  value  of  the  Christian 
documents  for  the  historian  lies  in  their  difference  from 
the  Roman  writers  at  least  as  much  as  in  their  agreement ; 
that  a  contrast  between  the  version  of  the  same  facts  given 
by  these  two  classes  of  documents  was  inseparable  from 
their  differing  points  of  view,  and,  so  far  from  disproving, 
is  really  the  necessary  condition  for  our  admitting,  the 
authenticity  of  the  Christian  documents.  If  they  agreed, 
they  would  lose  their  value  as  historical  authorities,  and 
they  could  not  possibly  be  genuine  works  of  the  period  to 
which  they  claim  to  belong. 

In  truth  we  are  fortunate,  amid  the  dearth  of  documentary 
evidence  as  to  the  actual  facts  of  history  in  the  period 
50-170,  to  have  so  many  presentations  of  the  general  tone 
of  feeling  and  thought  from  very  different  points  of  view. 


IX.    Subject  and  Method.  183 

In  the  Roman  writers  of  the  period  of  history  in  which 
our  subject  lies,  we  have  in  general  the  view  of  the 
opposition  to  the  imperial  rule ;  even  some  writers  who 
nominally  take  the  side  of  the  government  are  so  hope- 
lessly hedged  in  by  the  prejudices  of  the  past,  so  dominated 
by  the  glories  of  republican  Rome,  so  incapable  of  ap- 
preciating the  higher  elements  of  the  imperial  rule,  so 
opposed  in  heart  to  those  higher  elements  if  they  had 
understood  them,  that  they  present  themselves  as  mere 
apologists  of  a  rule  with  which  they  at  heart  are  not  in 
sympathy,  and  are  really  the  most  telling  witnesses 
against  the  system  which  they  believe  themselves  to  be 
defending  and  extolling. 

Few  authors  are  more  full  of  interest  than  the  Roman 
writers  of  this  period.  Historical  literature  has  never 
found  a  subject  more  full  of  picturesque  and  striking 
incidents,  of  strong  lights  and  deep  shadows,  of  vivid 
contrast  of  individual  characters,  of  enormous  vices  and 
of  great  virtues  in  the  dramatis  personcB,  Few  writers 
also  have  shown  greater  power  of  telling  their  story  in 
the  way  best  suited  to  heighten  its  effect.  No  writer 
has  surpassed,  hardly  any  has  equalled,  Tacitus  in  power 
of  adding  effect  to  a  narrative  by  the  manner  in  which  the 
incidents  are  grouped  and  the  action  described.  What- 
ever faults  a  purist  may  find  with  the  style  of  the  period, 
its  practical  effect  as  a  literary  instrument  can  with 
difficulty  be  paralleled  in  the  whole  range  of  literature. 
But  their  historical  view  is  far  from  wide.  It  would  not 
be  easy  to  find  a  period  in  which  literature  was  so  en- 
tirely blind  to  the  great  movements  that  were  going  on 
around  it.  The  Romans  were  destitute  of  the  historical 
faculty,  and  of  scientific  insight  or   interest :    they   could 


184        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

make  history,  but  they  could  not  write  it.  The  early 
emperors  are  remarkable  figures  in  themselves,  and  still 
more  remarkable  as  they  are  presented  to  us  by  Tacitus 
and  Suetonius ;  and  their  individual  influence  and  im- 
portance were  of  course  great.  But  the  permanent 
Imperial  policy  was  distinct  from  them  and  greater 
than  they  were,  and  offers  a  more  serious  problem  for 
the  modern  historian  of  the  Roman  empire.  We  must 
determine  what  was  the  policy  in  reference  to  the  pro- 
sperity and  education  of  the  population,  the  development 
of  jurisprudence,  the  organised  machinery  of  government, 
the  training  of  the  officials,  the  alimentary  foundations 
for  poor  children,  the  attempts  to  cope  with  great  social 
problems  (such  as  the  formally  admitted  duty  of  the 
State  to  feed  its  pauper  population),  the  spreading  of 
equal  rights  and  equal  citizenship  over  the  whole  civilised 
world,  the  making  of  a  state  religion  to  guarantee  that 
citizenship. 

On  such  things  as  these  depends  our  estimate  of  the 
Roman  Imperial  system  ;  and  on  such  points  the  Roman 
writers  are  practically  silent.  Among  them  we  find 
philosophers  who  aired  their  rhetoric,  rhetoricians  who 
dabbled  in  moral  philosophy,  at  best  pessimists  who  dis- 
believed in  the  present  and  in  the  future  of  the  Empire, 
who  made  heroes  of  Cato  with  his  pedantry,  of  Brutus 
with  his  affectation,  and  Cicero  with  his  superficiality, 
but  who  despaired  entirely  of  the  possibility  of  restoring 
their  golden  age.  The  historians  are  so  occupied  with 
the  great  events  of  history,  the  satirists  so  busy  with  the 
vices  of  upper-class  society,  the  moralists  with  abstract 
theorising,  the  poets  with  Greek  mythology  and  with  the 
maintenance  of  their  footing  in  the  atria  of  the  rich  and 


IX.    Subject  and  Method.  185 

the  favour  of  the  Emperor  and  his  freedmen,  that  they  have 
neither  time  to  write  about  the  aims  of  imperial  poHcy  nor 
eyes  to  see  them  ;  and  we  gather  only  indirectly  from 
them  some  information  which  we  can  interpret  by  other 
authorities.  Here  we  must  trust  to  our  second  class  of 
authorities,  the  inscriptions  and  the  laws. 

Lastly,  we  have  the  view  taken  by  the  adherents  of  that 
new  religion  which  grew  up  within  the  Empire,  formed 
itself  in  a  great  and  powerful  organisation,  and  finally 
took  into  itself  the  Imperial  Government,  its  policy,  and 
its  laws.  As  to  them,  we  might  with  little  exaggeration 
say  in  one  sweeping  sentence  that,  when  we  find  any 
person  who  sets  himself  to  do  something  with  energy  for 
the  improvement  of  society,  he  is  either  an  Emperor  or 
a  Christian. 

5.  Results  of  Separating  Church  History  from 
Imperial  History. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  this  last  class  of  authorities  has 
not  yet  been  used  so  fully  as  it  might  be  by  the  modern 
historians  of  the  Empire,  partly,  indeed,  from  doubts  with 
regard  to  the  authenticity  and  value  of  the  documents,  but 
partly  also  from  preoccupation  with  the  other  two  classes 
of  authorities.  But  if  classical  scholars  have  more  to  learn 
from  the  Christian  writers  than  has  been  generally  recog- 
nised, theologians  also  have  something  to  learn  from  the 
evidence  of  classical  history.  The  wide  and  accurate  know- 
ledge, and  the  grasp  of  the  facts  of  Roman  life,  shown  by 
the  late  Bishop  Lightfoot  and  some  other  scholars  whom 
I  need  not  name,  must  not  blind  us  to  the  comparative 
rarity  of  such  depth  of  treatment  as  theirs. 


1 86        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

In  particular,  I  feel  bound  to  say  that  in  several  of  the 
modern  German  critics  there  has  been  a  want  of 
historical  sense,  and  even  a  failure  to  grasp  the  facts  of 
Roman  life,  which  have  seriously  impaired  the  value 
of  their  work  in  early  Church  history,  in  spite  of  all 
their  learning  and  ability.  Perhaps  the  best  way  to 
explain  my  meaning,  and  to  offer  myself  to  criticism 
and  correction  if  I  am  wrong,  will  be  to  quote  a  few 
typical  examples. 

Baur's  "  Paul  the  Apostle  of  Jesus  Christ,"  with  its  keen 
criticism  of  the  historical  incidents  in  St.  Paul's  life,  has 
been  an  epoch-making  work  in  the  subject.  Let  us  take 
one  specimen  of  the  historical  arguments  which  he  uses. 
There  is  no  more  difficult  problem  for  the  historian  than 
the  relations  in  which  Romans  and  non-Romans  stood 
to  one  another  in  provincial  towns :  a  recent  paper  of 
Mommsen's  *  will  give  some  idea  of  the  utter  obscurity  in 
which  this  subject  is  involved.  But  for  Baur  there  is  no 
obscurity.  Utterly  unconscious  of  the  difficulty  of  the 
subject,  he  moves  with  perfect  ease  and  unhesitating  confi- 
dence through  the  scene  with  the  magistrates  at  Philippi  ; 
he  knows  exactly  what  the  colonial  magistrates  would  do 
and  how  they  would  behave ;  and  he  triumphantly  dis- 
proves the  authenticity  of  a  document  which  might  give 
one  who  possessed  the  historic  sense  a  vivid  picture  of 
the  provincial  Roman  magistrate  suddenly  realising  that  he 
has  treated  a  Roman  like  a  mere  native.  Ignorance  might 
be  freely  pardoned,  but  not  such  bold  assumption  of 
knowledge. 

But  this  example  is   perhaps  antediluvian  ;   let  us  see 

*  Epkameris  Ej^igra^hica,  vol.  vii.,  1892,  p.  4362. 


IX.    Subject  and  Method.  187 

whether  all  is  now  changed  for  the  better.  I  shall  come 
down  to  a  recent  date,  18S7,  and  to  no  mean  theologian, 
Dr.  Pflcidcrer  of  the  University  of  Berlin  ;  and  shall  select 
two  examples  bearing  closely  on  my  present  subject  and 
helping  to  make  it  clear. 

I.  In  one  single  sentence  he  states  the  historical  argu- 
ment about  the  first  epistle  attributed  to  St.  Peter.  It 
presupposes  that  the  persons  to  whom  it  was  addressed 
were  in  a  situation  introduced  by  an  act  of  Trajan,  and 
therefore  the  epistle  must  be  later  than  Trajan.  These 
persons  belonged  to  the  provinces  or  countries  of  Pontus, 
Galatia,  Cappadocia,  Asia,  and  Bithynia ;  *  and  Dr. 
Pfleiderer  boldly  sums  up  these  countries  as  the  Roman 
province  of  Asia  Minor,  declares  that  Pliny  was  governor 
of  Asia  Minor,  and  that  Trajan,  in  reply  to  a  question 
addressed  to  him  by  Pliny,  issued  an  edict,  ordering  a 
persecution  of  the  Christians  in  the  province  of  Asia  Minor. 
It  would  not  be  easy  to  unite  more  errors  in  a  single  short 
sentence,  (i)  There  was  no  such  Roman  province  as  Asia 
Minor.  (2)  There  was  for  the  ancients  no  such  geo- 
graphical or  political  entity  as  Asia  Minor.  (3)  Pliny 
was  governor,  not  of  all  the  districts  mentioned  in  I.  Peter, 
but  of  the  one  province  of  Bithynia-Pontus.  He  had  no 
authority  in  Cappadocia  or  Galatia  or  Asia.  Therefore, 
if  Trajan's  orders  extended  only  to  Pliny's  province,  Dr. 

•  *' Urchristenthum,"  p.  656  :  "  Der  Brief  setzt  voraus,  dass  die 
Kleinasiatischen  Laser  um  ihres  Christennamens  willen  gerichtliche 
Verfolgungen  zu  bestehen  batten  ;  solche  Glaubensprozesse  aber,  bei 
welchen  keine  andenveitige  Beschuldigung  als  eben  das  Christen- 
bekenntniss  den  Anklagepunkt  bildete,  sind  erstmals  von  Trajan 
angeordnet  worden,  und  zwar  gerade  fiir  die  Provinz  Kleinasien, 
wo  Plinius  Statthalter  war,  der  durch  seine  Anfrage  in  dieser  Sache 
das  kaiserliche  Edikt  veranlasste." 


1 88        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Pfleiderer's  explanation  fails  to  account  for  the  facts  with 
which  he  is  dealing.  (4)  Trajan  did  not  issue  any  edict 
about  the  Christians. 

In  the  sequel  we  shall  see  how  far  any  unprejudiced 
reader  of  the  original  letters  could  hold  that  Trajan  first 
instituted  a  persecution  of  the  Christians. 

2.  Arguing  that  the  Epistles  of  Ignatius  are  a  forgery, 
Dr.  Pfleiderer  says  that  the  tale  of  Ignatius'  journey  as  a 
prisoner  to  be  exposed  to  beasts  in  Rome  is  an  unhistorical 
fiction ;  for  there  is  no  analogy  in  the  second  century  to 
this  transportation  of  the  criminal  from  the  place  of  trial 
to  the  Roman  amphitheatre.*  But  it  is  a  commonplace  of 
history  that  the  practice  was  usual.  It  was  regulated  by 
special  enactments,  a  few  of  which  are  preserved  to  us.  If 
among  the  small  number  of  cases  known  to  us  of  Christians 
exposed  to  wild  beasts  no  parallel  to  Ignatius  occurs,  that 
is  no  argument  against  the  general  practice,  Mommsen 
expressly  argues  that  the  words  of  the  Apocalypse,  that 
Rome  was  "  drunk  with  the  blood  of  the  martyrs,"  must  be 
understood  as  referring  to  those  who  were  condemned  in 
the  Eastern  provinces  and  sent  to  Rome  for  execution.f 

I  do  not  quote  these  faults  from  any  desire  to  pick  holes 
in  the  work  of  scholars  greater  than  myself,  but  solely  be- 
cause they  are  examples  of  false  method.  The  question 
as  to  the  date  of  I.  Peter  is  a  historical  question,  and  the 


*  Pfleiderer,  "  Das  Urchristenthum,"  p.  826  :  "  Diese  ganze  Raise 
des  Verurtheilten  nach  Rom  ist  eine  ungeschichtliche  Fiktion  ;  denn 
so  oft  auch  Christen  zum  Thierkampf  verurtheilt  wurden,  so  findet 
sich  doch  im  zweiten  Jahrhundert  keine  Analogic  zu  diesem  Trans- 
port aus  dem  Gerichtsort  ins  romische  Amphitheater." 

t  See  Provinces  of  the  Roman  Em  fire,  vol.  ii.,  p.  199,  of  the 
English  Translation. 


IX.    Subject  and  Method.  189 

necessary  condition  of  understanding  it  properly  is  to 
accurately  conceive  the  circumstances  and  position  of  those 
to  whom  it  is  addressed.  What  confidence  can  be  placed 
in  the  judgment  about  the  authenticity  of  a  historical 
document  pronounced  by  a  critic  who  is  so  hopelessly  at 
sea  in  regard  to  elementary  facts  about  the  condition  of 
the  provinces  to  which  the  document  relates?  But 
Dr.  Pflcidcrcr  cares  for  none  of  these  things.  Ingenious 
and  highly  abstract  philosophic  thought  reveals  to  him 
the  whole  evolution  of  Christian  history,  and  with  that 
knowledge  clear  in  his  mind  he  decides  with  secure 
confidence  on  the  authenticity  and  date  of  historical 
documents.  In  truth  historical  arguments  are  to  him  of 
little  importance  and  of  no  interest.  His  historical  argu- 
ment about  I.  Peter  is  a  mere  parergon,  a  mere  make- 
weight thrown  in  for  the  sake  of  appearance  and  effect : 
unreasonable  people  demand  historical  arguments  about 
historical  documents,  and  it  looks  well  to  give  them.  The 
whole  value  of  Dr.  Pflciderer's  learned,  ingenious,  and  able 
work  lies  in  another  direction  ;  but  for  us,  who  require 
the  theory  to  be  founded  on  the  document,  not  the 
document  cut  to  fit  the  theory,  its  value  is  nil. 

The  false  method  which  has  just  been  alluded  to  is 
far  too  common.  In  a  subject  of  such  difficulty  as  the 
history  of  the  early  Church,  a  subject  about  which  the 
only  point  that  is  universally  agreed  on  is  its  obscurity, 
not  a  few  writers  feel  so  confident  in  their  own  particular 
theory  that  they  condemn  as  spurious  every  piece  of 
evidence  that  disagrees  with  it.  This  condemnation  is 
sometimes  justified  by  a  professed  examination  of  the 
evidence — a  mere  pretence,  because  conducted  with  mind 
already  made  up  and  strained  in  the  outlook  for  reasons 


IQO        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

to  support  their  conclusion  ;  at  other  times  the  pretence 
of  examination  is  discarded,  and  a  document,  in  spite  of 
the  general  presumption  in  its  favour  on  other  grounds, 
is  rejected  or  relegated  to  a  later  date,  simply  and 
solely  because  its  admission  is  fatal  to  the  critic's  pet 
theory. 

6.  The  Point  of  View. 

No  one  can  be  free  from  bias  in  this  subject,  and 
perhaps,  therefore,  it  would  be  best  to  put  you  on  your 
guard  by  stating  briefly  the  general  point  of  view  from 
which  these  lectures  are  written. 

The  Roman  Empire  and  the  Church  represent  to  the 
historian  two  different  attempts  to  cope  with  the  existing 
problems  of  society.  The  former  started  from  the  idea 
first  articulated  by  Tiberius  Gracchus,  that  every  Roman 
citizen  deserved  to  occupy  a  situation  of  decent  comfort, 
and  to  benefit  in  some  degree  by  the  wealth  and  prosperity 
of  the  whole  state.  It  soon  appeared  that  this  idea  implied 
political  reform,  or  rather  revolution.  Experience  further 
showed  that  this  revolution,  and  the  changed  relations  to 
the  subject  countries  which  were  introduced  by  it,  de- 
manded a  new  religion. 

A  religion  was  needed,  for  to  the  ancients  a  union  with- 
out a  religious  bond  to  hold  it  together  was  inconceivable. 
Every  society  made  its  union  binding  on  its  members  by 
religious  obligations  and  common  ritual.  The  family  tie 
meant,  not  common  blood,  but  communion  in  the  same 
family  cultus.  Patriotism  was  another  form  of  adherence 
to  the  national  religion. 

Further,  this  religion  must  be  a  new  one  ;  for  no  existing 


IX.    Subject  a7id  JMethod.  191 

religion  was  wider  than  national ;  *  and  no  ancient  religion 
wished  to  proselytise  or  to  take  in  new  members.  The 
object  of  each  was  to  confine  its  benefits  to  a  small 
circle  of  devotees,  and  to  enlist  the  aid  of  the  god  whom 
it  worshipped  against  all  strangers,  all  foreigners,  all 
enemies — i.e.,  against  all  who  were  not  within  the  privileged 
circle.  But  the  new  Empire  transcended  national  distinc- 
tions and  national  religions.  Roman  citizenship  included 
an  ever  growing  proportion  of  the  population  in  every  land 
round  the  Mediterranean,  till  at  last  it  embraced  the  whole 
Roman  world. 

This  new  unity  therefore  required  a  new  religion  to  con- 
secrate it,  and  to  create  a  common  idea  and  a  tie.  Half 
with  conscious  aim,  half  driven  on  unconsciously  by  the 
tide  of  circumstances,  the  new  empire  set  about  creating  a 
new  religion.  It  showed  extraordinary  skill  in  construct- 
ing the  new  system  out  of  the  old  with  the  least  possible 
change,  taking  up  the  existing  religions  and  giving  them 
a  place  in  its  scheme.  The  Emperor  represented  the 
majesty,  the  wisdom,  and  the  beneficent  power  of  Rome : 
he  was  in  many  cases  actually  represented  in  different  parts 
of  the  empire  as  an  incarnation  of  the  god  worshipped  in 
that  district,  the  Zeus  Larasios  of  Tralles,  the  Men  of 
Juliopolis,  the  Zeus  Olympios  of  the  Greeks  in  general. 
Even  where  this  final  step  was  not  taken,  the  imperial 
cultus  was,  in  the  Asian  provinces  generally,  organised 
as  the  highest  and  most  authoritative  religion,  and  the 
emperor  was  named  along  with  and  before  the  special 
deity  of  the  district. 

•  Apparent  exceptions,  such  as  the  worship  of  Isis,  need  not  be 
here  discussed.     The  general  principle  will  not  be  disputed  by  any 


192        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire, 

Christianity  also  created  a  religion  for  the  Empire, 
transcending  all  distinctions  of  nationality  ;  but,  far  from 
striving  to  preserve  a  continuity  between  the  past  and 
the  future,  it  comprehended  the  past  in  a  universal  con- 
demnation, "dust  and  ashes,  dead  and  done  vi'ith."  It 
cannot  be  denied  that  the  Christians  were  in  a  historical 
view  unfair  to  the  old  religions,  and  blind  to  certain  fine 
conceptions  lurking  in  them ;  but  it  is  equally  certain 
that  the  Imperial  state  religion  had  no  vitality  and  nothing 
of  the  religious  character. 

The  path  of  development  for  the  empire  lay  in  accepting 
the  religion  offered  it  to  complete  its  organisation.  Down 
to  the  time  of  Hadrian  there  was  a  certain  progress  on  the 
part  of  the  Empire  towards  a  recognition  of  this  necessity  ; 
after  Hadrian  the  progress  ended,  but  also  after  Hadrian 
the  development  of  the  imperial  idea  ended,  until  he  found 
a  successor  in  Constantine. 

This  view  *  has  been  the  guide  in  my  reading,  and  has 
perhaps  caused  some  bias  in  choosing  facts.  But  I  am 
glad  to  be  able  to  refer  to  the  eloquent  and  weighty  pages 
in  which  Mommsen  last  year  showed  f  that  Christianity 
was  in  reality  not  the  enemy  but  the  friend  of  the  Empire, 
that  the  Empire  grew  far  stronger  when  the  Emperors 

*  I  may  quote  what  I  said  in  the  Expositor,  December  1889, 
p.  402  :  "  One  of  the  most  remarkable  sides  of  the  history  of  Rome 
is  the  growth  of  ideas  which  found  their  realisation  and  completion 
in  the  Christian  Empire.  Universal  citizenship,  universal  equalitj'', 
universal  religion,  a  universal  Church,  all  were  ideas  which  the 
Empire  was  slowly  working  out,  but  which  it  could  not  realise  till  it 
merged  itself  in  Christianity." 

t  On  pp.  416  £f.  of  a  remarkable  review  of  Neumann,  which  appeared 
in  the  Historische  Zeitschrift,  vol.  xxviii.,  pp.  389-429,  under  the 
title  of  "  Der  Religionsfrevel  nach  romischem  Recht." 


IX.    Subject  and  Method.  193 

became  Christian,  that  the  religious  attitude  of  the  earlier 
centuries  was  a  source  of  weakness  rather  than  of  strength, 
and  the  endeavour  of  the  fourth  century  to  make  the  state 
religion  an  abstract  monotheism  tolerant  of  all  creeds  and 
sects  was  soon  found  impracticable. 

But  when  Mommsen  implies  that  the  emperors  would 
gladly  have  tolerated  Christianity,  but  were  occasionally 
forced  by  popular  feeling  and  popular  clamour  to  depart 
from  their  proper  policy  and  persecute  Christianity,  I 
cannot  follow  him.  Instances  of  mere  weak  yielding  to 
popular  feeling  undoubtedly  occur ;  but  in  a  strong  govern- 
ment a  permanent  policy  could  not  be  based  on  such  a 
motive. 

The  difficulty  then  is,  how  is  the  persecution  of  Christians 
by  the  emperors  to  be  explained?  Lightfoot  has  urged 
that  Christianity  was  a  religio  illicita,  and  as  such  forbidden 
by  immemorial  law.  This  is  true,  but  it  does  not  constitute 
a  sufficient  explanation  of  the  persecution.  The  same 
prohibition  applied  to  many  other  religions  which  practi- 
cally were  never  interfered  with.  Growing  toleration  of 
non-Roman  religions  was  inseparable  from  the  growth  of 
the  imperial  idea  and  the  gradual  merging  of  Roman 
citizenship  in  Imperial  citizenship.  The  exclusivencss  of 
Roman  religion,  which  sprang  from  the  pride  of  Roman 
citizenship,  necessarily  grew  weaker  along  with  it.  The 
sense  of  this  growing  change  was  not  perhaps  consciously 
and  distinctly  present  to  the  mind  of  any  Emperor  except 
Hadrian,  who  is  said  to  have  entertained  the  thought  of 
building  temples  everywhere  to  the  unseen  god.*  But  it 
must  have   been    dimly  felt  by  all  the  emperors,  and   it 


See  Scripiores  Histories  Augusta^  xviii.  (Alex.  Severus),  43,  6. 

13 


194        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

certainly  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  growing  indifference  to 
the  spread  of  foreign  rites  among  the  Romans. 

To  explain  the  proscription  of  one  religion  alone,  amid 
otherwise  universal  tolerance,  is  our  first  object. 

Few  historical  questions  have  suffered  more  from  loose 
expression  and  loose  thought  than  this.  It  is  universally 
agreed  (i)  that  originally  Christians  were  regarded  as  a 
mere  Jewish  sect,  that  the  Empire  did  not  concern  itself  with 
questions  of  Jewish  law,  and  that  Christianity  benefited  by 
the  freedom  and  even  favour  granted  to  the  Jewish  religion 
by  the  Roman  Government ;  (2)  that  at  a  later  period  there 
was  an  absolute  proscription  of  Christianity  by  the  empire, 
and  war  to  the  knife  between  these  two  powers. 

The  question  at  what  time  the  one  treatment  was 
changed  for  the  other,  or  whether  any  intermediate  treatment 
different  from  both  was  in  force  for  a  time,  is  a  delicate 
one,  in  which  precision  in  word  and  in  thought  is  abso- 
lutely essential.  Until  Mommsen  had  introduced  more 
exact  ideas  as  to  the  terms  and  forms  of  Imperial  procedure, 
such  precision  was  very  difficult  to  practise ;  and  even  now 
to  attain  it  is  "  hard  and  rare." 

The  beginning  of  the  declared  and  inexpiable  war 
between  the  Empire  and  the  Christians  has  been  assigned 
to  very  different  dates  by  modern  writers.  Some  make  it 
the  result  of  a  supposed  edict  of  Septimius  Severus,  but 
Neumann  has  shown  conclusively  that  no  proof  exists  that 
Severus  issued  any  edict  on  the  subject.  It  illustrates  the 
looseness  with  which  the  legal  and  administrative  aspects 
of  this  question  are  treated,  that  Dr.  Harnack,*  in  review- 
ing   Neumann,  continues   to  speak   of  this   edict,   whose 


Theologische  Zettschri/t,  1890,  No.  4,  col.  87. 


IX.    Subject  and  Method.  195 

existence  Neumann  has  disproved.  There  is  no  proof, 
and  we  may  add  no  probability,  that  Severus  did  more 
than  answer  by  rescript  questions  addressed  to  him  by 
provincial  governors.  This  is  no  mere  question  of  words 
and  names  ;  it  is  a  question  of  prime  consequence  in  under- 
standing the  relation  of  the  Empire  and  of  Severus  to  the 
Church. 

Others  date  the  beginning  of  this  war  from  the  reign  of 
Trajan  ;*  Neumann  recently  derives  it  from  Domitian,  and 
dates  the  supposed  change  in  the  attitude  of  the  State  to 
the  Church  precisely  95  A.D. 

Where  shall  we  find  a  safe  point  from  which  to  start  our 
investigation  ?  This  cannot  be  a  matter  of  doubt.  If 
we  were  allowed  our  choice  of  a  piece  of  evidence  about 
the  view  held  by  the  Imperial  administration  with  regard 
to  the  Christians,  probably  those  most  conversant  with 
Roman  history  would  ask  for  a  private  report  addressed  to 
the  Emperor  for  purely  business  reasons,  with  no  thought 
of  publication,  by  some  experienced  official,  possessing  a 
good  acquaintance  with  the  ordinary  imperial  procedure, 
and  for  the  Emperor's  reply  to  it.  That  we  possess  in 
Pliny's  Report  addressed  to  Trajan  from  Bithynia,  probably 
in  the  latter  months  of  the  year  112,  and  Trajan's  Rescript 
to  Pliny. 

*  This  was  the  prevailing  idea  in  Germany,  and  in  all  scholarship 
that  was  dominated  by  German  influence,  till  Neumann.  A  slight 
variety  of  it  is  stated  by  Overbeck,  Studien  zur  Geschichte  der 
alien  Kirche,  p.  94,  "  Before  Nerva  it  is  only  by  accident  through 
the  personal  mood  of  one  or  another  Emperor  that  the  Christian  sect 
found  itself  at  enmity  with  the  state." 


A 


CHAPTER  X. 

PLINY'S  REPORT  AND   TRAJAN'S  RESCRIPT.* 

I.  Preliminary  Considerations. 

WORD  of  preliminary  is  needed  on  the  question  of 
the  genuineness  of  the  documents.  The  question 
fortunately  has  been  already  raised,  discussed,  and,  we 
may  almost  say,  buried.  The  correspondence  of  Pliny  with 
Trajan  depends  on  a  single  manuscript,  of  unknown  age, 
found  in  Paris  about  1 500,  apparently  taken  to  Italy  in  the 
next  few  years,  used  by  several  persons  before  1508,  and 
never  since  seen  or  known.  In  spite  of  this  suspicious 
history,  the  correspondence  is  indubitably  genuine.  It 
contains  such  a  picture  of  provincial  administration  that, 
until  Mommsen  had  written  and  the  publication  of  the 
Corpus  Inscriptionum  Latinarum  had  been  well  advanced, 
no  one  was  able  adequately  to  understand  its  importance  ;t 
and  each  advance  in  our  knowledge  of  the  imperial  organi- 
sation only  enables  us  more  clearly  to  appreciate  the 
importance  of  this  unique  revelation  of  Roman  provincial 
government. 

The  two  letters  (nos.  96  and  97)  which  especially  concern 
us  now  are  also  genuine.    The  one  is  indubitably  written  in 

•  Pliny,  "  Epist.  ad  Trajan,"  96,  97. 

+  The  whole  correspondence  can  be  studied  best  in  Mr.  Hardy's 
useful  edition,  the  notes  in  which  bring  out  the  characteristics  of 
provincial  administration  very  well.  A  few  occasional  errors  are 
not  such  as  to  interfere  with  the  enjoyment  and  profit  of  the  reader. 

ig6 


X.    Pliny  s  Report  and  Trajan  s  Rescript.     197 

Pliny's  style.  The  other  shows  the  direct,  incisive  manner 
of  the  great  practical  administrator,  Trajan,  who  speaks 
his  meaning  without  a  single  unnecessary  clause ;  but  we 
have  not  the  same  criteria  about  the  style  as  we  have  in 
the  case  of  Pliny,  and  we  must  take  into  account  that 
such  rescripts  were  perhaps  composed  in  the  imperial 
chancellery  from  the  Emperor's  notes  or  verbal  directions. 
Personally,  I  must  confess  that  the  whole  series  of  Trajan's 
rescripts  to  Pliny  make  on  me  the  impression  of  having 
been  composed  (and  doubtless  dictated)  by  one  single 
person  ;  but  it  is  not  easy  to  estimate,  and  it  is  certainly 
not  safe  to  minimise,  the  degree  to  which  uniformity  of 
style  could  be  impressed  on  an  official  bureau  under  the 
permanent  direction  of  one  powerful  genius.  The  spirit  of 
these  documents,  so  different  from  that  of  any  later  age,  is 
alone  a  sufficient  defence.  A  forger  is  confined  within  the 
limits  of  his  own  knowledge  and  of  the  tone  and  spirit  of 
his  time  ;  but  these  documents  become  more  pregnant 
with  meaning  the  longer  they  are  studied  ;  and  the  diffi- 
culties which  they  undoubtedly  present  are  caused  partly 
by  the  imperfection  of  our  own  knowledge,  and  partly 
by  determined  prepossession  in  favour  of  some  imperfect 
historical  view. 

In  order  to  appreciate  properly  two  such  documents  we 
must  put  ourselves  in  the  position  of  the  two  parties,  and 
we  must  clearly  conceive  their  character  and  their  training 
—the  one  with  the  precise,  formal,  but  scrupulously  just 
character  of  a  lawyer  of  high  standing  and  long  practice  in 
the  Roman  courts,  the  other  the  greatest  and  most  clear- 
sighted administrator  that  ever  wielded  the  power  be- 
queathed by  Augustus.  We  may  be  sure  that  a  question 
on  a  point  of  legal  procedure  addressed  by  Pliny  to  Trajan 


198        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

puts  before  him  clearly  the  legal  aspect  of  the  situation  ; 
but  he  explains  nothing  which  he  can  assume  to  be  present 
in  the  Emperor's  mind.  We  have,  then,  not  merely  to 
translate  the  documents,  which  is  comparatively  easy,  but 
to  understand  them,  which  is  very  difficult.  We  have  to 
read  much  between  the  lines,  to  conceive  very  precisely  the 
meaning  of  certain  phrases,  and  above  all  to  remember 
that  these  are  business  papers,  and  the  writers  men  of 
affairs — not  philosophers  discussing  subtleties,  nor  historians 
drawing  a  picture  of  events  for  the  benefit  of  future  readers. 
This  is  by  no  means  a  short  or  easy  task  ;  and  I  trust 
therefore  to  your  patience  if  I  enter  with  even  painful 
minuteness  into  the  discussion  of  the  whole  situation,  and 
to  your  indulgence  if,  after  all,  I  should  fail  to  grasp 
thoroughly,  or  explain  clearly,  the  situation. 

2.  The  Religious  Question  in  Bithynia-Pontus. 

In  A.D.  112,*  as  we  learn  incidentally  from  Pliny's  letter, 
the  new  religion  had  spread  so  widely  in  Bithynia,  not 
merely  in  the  cities,  but  also  in  the  villages  and  the 
country  districts  generally,  that  the  temples  were  almost 
deserted,  and  the  sacrificial  ritual  was  interrupted.  In- 
formation against  the  Christians  was  lodged  with  Pliny  ; 
but  we  are  left  to  guess  from  what  quarter  it  came,  and 
what  precise  form  it  took.  He  does  not  expressly  tell  us 
whether  the  accusations  were  simply  couched  in  the  form 
that  the  accused  were  Christians,  or  whether  it  was  also 
alleged  that  they  had  caused  injury  and  undeserved  loss 
to  respectable  persons,  or  had  been  guilty  of  grave  crimes. 

*  Mommsen  leaves  a  choice  between  the  two  years  112,  113. 


X.   Pliny  s  Report  and  Trajan  s  Rescript,    1 99 


Whatever  was  the  precise  character  of  the  charges  Pliny 
entertained  them. 

It  is  probable  that  Pliny,  with  his  strict,  precise  ideas  of 
the  law,  and  with  the  careful,  zealous  attention  to  duty 
which  belonged  to  his  character,  proceeded,  immediately 
on  his  arrival  in  the  province,  to  carry  out  the  principles 
of  Roman  provincial  administration  with  an  energy  and 
thoroughness  that  formed  a  strong  contrast  to  the  conduct 
of  the  preceding  governors.  The  latter  had  permitted  a 
laxity  of  administration,  which  had  led  to  serious  disorders 
and  disorganisation  throughout  the  province.  Pliny  had 
been  sent  on  a  special  mission  to  restore  order ;  and  he 
showed  his  activity,  we  may  be  sure,  from  the  day  he 
entered  on  office.  The  character  of  his  mission — to  restore 
order  in  a  province  disorganised  by  lax  administration — 
lends  additional  emphasis  and  meaning  to  the  fact  that  he 
rigidly  enforced  the  procedure  against  the  Christians.  It 
also  throws  a  clear  light  on  his  explanation  to  the  Emperor 
that  the  Christians  deserved  death  for  their  obstinate  and 
insubordinate  spirit,  quite  apart  from  any  question  as  to 
the  penalty  of  their  Christianity,  They  offered  a  gross 
instance  of  the  disorder  and  insubordination  which  had  been 
allowed  to  pervade  the  province,  and  which  Pliny  was 
commissioned  to  stamp  out.  Such  was  his  first  duty,  and 
it  is  easy  to  understand  how  the  Christians  must  have 
appeared  to  him  to  need  energetic  and  severe  treatment 
as  soon  as  his  attention  was  called  to  them. 

Now  Pliny  pointedly  menlions  that  an  improvement  in 
one  branch  of  trade, — viz.  in  the  sale  of  fodder  for  the 
victims  that  were  kept  in  stock  at  the  temples  to  be  ready 
for  sacrifice  by  worshippers — took  place  in  consequence  of 
his  energetic  measures  against  the  Christians.     This  curious 


200        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

reference  to  a  rather  humble  trade  suggests  that  originally 
complaints  had  been  made  to  Pliny  by  the  tradesmen 
whose  business  was  endangered,  and  that  in  this  way  his 
attention  was  first  drawn  to  the  Christians.  He  saw  that 
persons  engaged  in  a  lawful  occupation  were  interfered 
with  in  their  trade,  and  deprived  of  their  proper  gains, 
through  the  disturbance  caused  in  society  and  ordinary 
ways  of  life  by  the  action  of  the  Christians  and  the  new- 
fangled ideas  and  ways  which  they  introduced.  Such 
interference  with  the  settled  course  of  society  was  certain 
to  rouse  the  action  of  the  Roman  Government  wherever  it 
was  vigorously  administered,  and  it  was,  as  a  rule,  in  some 
such  way  that  the  Christian  religion  in  its  earlier  stages 
attracted  the  notice  and  the  repressive  action  of  the 
State.* 

An  example  of  the  attitude  which  a  Roman  governor 
would  be  likely  to  assume  towards  any  such  interference 
with  the  normal  course  of  trade  may  be  quoted  from  the 
neighbouring  province  of  Asia.  When  disturbances  were 
caused  at  Magnesia  on  the  Mseander  by  the  bakers,  who 
had  struck  for  higher  prices,  a  Roman  official  (of  course 
the  proconsul)  prohibited  them  from  forming  a  union,  and 
ordered  them  to  continue  their  industry.  Such  revolu- 
tionary conduct  was  destructive  of  peace  and  order,  and 
was  always  vigorously  repressed  by  the  Roman  Government. 
No  question  was  asked  whether  the  bakers  had  any 
justification  for  their  demand  for  higher  prices.  Their 
action  in  depriving  the  city  of  the  necessary  supply  of 
bread  must  necessarily  cause  disorder,  and  was  therefore 


*  E.g.,  Paul's  troubles  at  Philippi  and  at  Ephesus  were  caused  in 
this  way.     See  p.  131. 


X.    Plmys  Report  and  Trojans  Rescript.    201 

dangerous.  The  proconsul,  accordingly,  ordered  them  to 
submit  in  all  respects  to  the  officials  charged  with  the 
superintendence  of  the  general  interests  of  the  city.* 

3.  First  and  Second  Stage  of  the  Trials. 

In  the  investigations  which  followed  in  Bithynia  or 
Pontus,t  the  earlier  cases  appear  to  have  been  of  a  uniform 
type.  The  first  that  were  accused — they  were  no  doubt 
the  boldest  and  most  prominent  adherents  of  the  faithj — 
appear  to  have  all,  without  exception,  persisted  in  avowing 
their  religion.  Pliny's  procedure  was  to  put  three  times  to 
them  the  question  whether  they  were  Christians,  at  the 
same  time  threatening  them  with  punishment.  When  they 
persisted  in  declaring  themselves  Christians,  Pliny  con- 
demned to  death  those  who  were  provincials,  while  those 
who  were  Roman  citizens  he  ordered  to  be  transported  to 
Rome  to  await  the  Emperor's  decision. 

More  complexity  in  the  cases  appeared,  when  in  con- 
sequence of  the  proceedings  §  new  charges  were  brought ; 

*  aTrayopevo)  fi'i're  (TVVfp\(a9ai  Toiis  apTO»c[d]»couf  kot  (Taipiav,  firjre 
77 pot crTTj KOTOS  dpuavvfcrdai,  ntiOapxiiv  8e  Trl^dv^Tcos  rols  vnep  rov  Koivjj 
(Tvp.(p(poirros  fTTiTaTTOfifvois,  Koi  Tr\v  avayKaiav  tov  aprov  ipyacrlav  avevber] 
napfxftv  TTJ  TToXfi. — Bull.  Correspondance  Hell6nique,  1883,  p.  506. 
It  is  unfortunate  that  this  extremely  interesting  and  important 
document  is  imperfect,  so  that  the  date  and  the  precise  circum- 
stances are  uncertain. 

t  On  the  precise  part  of  the  province  Bithynia-Pontus,  where  the 
trials  were  held,  see  p.  224. 

t  They  correspond  to  those  qui  fatebantur  in  Tacitus,  Annals, 
XV.  44  ;  see  p.  238. 

§  Ipso  tractatu  :  i.e.,  new  cases  resulted  from  information  obtained 
in  the  first  trials  ;  but  Mr.  Hardy's  explanation — that  the  informers 
were  encouraged  to  fresh  accusations — is  perhap-  correct ;  or  both 
results  may  be  summed  up  in  one  brief  phrase.     As  I  am  disposed 


202        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

and  the  variety  in  the  cases  was  still  further  increased 
when  an  anonymous  document  reached  Pliny  denouncing 
a  large  number  of  persons.  In  the  course  of  the  further 
trials  that  were  thus  brought  about,  some  of  the  defendants 
at  once  denied  that  they  were  Christians,  others  at  first 
acknowledged,  but  yielded  (as  we  may  understand  from  the 
context)  to  the  threats  of  the  governor,  and  recanted,  saying 
that  they  had  formerly  been  Christians,  but  had  ceased  to 
be  so,  some  even  twenty-five  years  ago.  All  these  offered 
incense  before  the  statue  of  the  Emperor,  and  cursed  Christ 
Pliny  now  found  himself  in  a  difficulty.  He  had  no  doubt 
as  to  the  procedure  when  the  culprits  persisted  in  claiming 
the  name  of  Christian,  but  when  they  repented  he  began  to 
hesitate.  Apparently  he  detained  the  penitents  until  he 
consulted  the  Emperor,  while  those  who  denied  that  they 
were  or  ever  had  been  Christians  were  dismissed. 

This  exposition  differs  to  a  slight  degree  from  the  view 
held  by  Neumann,*  who  says  that  a  change  in  the  form  of 
procedure    occurred   after   the   anonymous    document    of 

to  understand  it,  i^so  tractatu  corresponds  to  indicia  eorum  in 
Td.c\\.ViS^  Annals ,  xv.  44:  information  obtained  in  the  course  of  the 
first  trials  is  meant ;  but  Tacitus  lays  more  stress  on  the  fact  that 
this  information  was  gained  through  the  examination  of  the  accused 
persons,  Pliny  on  the  fact  that  it  was  elicited  in  connection  with 
their  cases.  As  other  cases  of  later  date  show,  Pliny  would  begin 
in  each  case  by  identifying  the  accused,  asking  his  name,  station, 
city,  occupation,  etc.  See,  e.g.,  Acta  Carpi,  and  M.  Le  Blant, 
Supplem.  aux  Actes  des  Martyrs,  §  59,  in  Memoires  de  V Institut, 
tome  XXX.,  part  II.,  1883. 

*  "  Es  lief  ein  anon.  Klagschrift  ein  :  .  .  .  Jetzt  begniigt  sich 
Plinius  aber  nicht  mehr  mit  der  Frage,  ob  die  Angeklagten  Christen 
sind,  sondem  jetzt  fragt  er  sie  auch,  ob  sie  es  iiberhaupt  einmal 
waren.  Auch  geniigt  ihm  jetzt  nicht  mehr  die  einfache  Verleugnung, 
sondern  er  fordert  dass  sich  dieselbe  in  der  Anrufung,  u.s.w. 
bewahre  "  (Neumann,  p.  20). 


X.    Pliny  s  Report  aiid  Trajan  s  Rescript.     203 

accusation  {libellus  accusatorius)  was  received,  and  that 
Pliny,  who  had  previously  accepted  the  denial  at  once,  now 
in  the  second  series  of  trials  went  further,  first,  asking 
whether  they  ever  had  been  Christians,  and  secondly, 
requiring  them  to  confirm  their  denial  by  distinct  acts  of 
conformity  to  the  established  religion.  But  this  further 
procedure  need  not  and  cannot  be  taken  as  an  innovation 
introduced  in  the  second  series  of  trials.  In  the  first  series, 
where  the  best  known  cases  appeared,  there  were  only 
respondents  of  one  class,  viz.,  the  confessors  {confitentes  or 
fatentes) ;  in  the  second  series  several  classes  appeared 
{plures  species  inciderunt).  Pliny  did  not  modify  his 
procedure  :  he  acted  throughout  on  a  certain  view  as  to  the 
proper  law  and  procedure,  and  when  he  began  to  feel  some 
misgivings  whether  his  knowledge  was  equal  to  the  com- 
plexity and  importance  of  the  cases,  he  stayed  the  investiga- 
tions till  he  could  lay  his  difficulties  before  the  Emperor. 

Pliny  does  not  expressly  state  that  there  were  in  the 
iater  series  of  trials  any  cases  of  persistent  and  resolute 
confession  ;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  there  were.  It 
was  unnecessary  for  him  to  mention  them  expressly,  for 
his  object  was  merely  to  indicate  the  various  types :  the 
confessors  are  mentioned  once  for  all  in  the  original  series 
of  cases,  and  Pliny's  way  of  treating  them  is  described.* 

When  the  simple  process  of  listening  to  reiterated  con- 
fession and  pronouncing  sentence  was  no  longer  sufficient, 
Pliny  began  to  inquire  into  the  course  of  action,  the 
principles,    and    the   character    of    the    Christians.      The 

•  Neumann's  view  is  different.  He  considers  that  Pliny  reserved 
all  cases  of  confession  in  the  further  series  of  trials  :  "  Das  Urteil  iiber 
die  Christen  die  fest  geblieben  hat  er  offenbar  noch  nicht  gefallt," 
p.  20. 


204        The  Church  tn  the  Roman  Empire. 

question  here  arises,  why  did  he  make  this  inquiry?  Was 
it  from  enlightened  curiosity  and  scientific  desire  to  inves- 
tigate the  facts,  or  was  it  as  an  essential  necessary  part  of 
the  legal  proceedings?  Pliny's  position  and  legal  training 
leave  no  doubt  that  he  conceived  the  inquiry  to  be 
necessary  in  order  to  enable  him  to  decide  on  their  case. 
If  they  persistently  confess  the  Name  Pliny  does  not  think 
it  essential  to  inquire  further  into  their  behaviour  before 
condemning  them ;  but  if  they  recant  and  abjure  the  Name, 
and  prove  their  penitence  by  acts  of  conformity  with  the 
religion  recognised  by  the  State,  then  he  finds  it  necessary 
to  investigate  into  their  previous  action  and  life  before  he 
comes  to  any  determination  as  to  what  verdict  he  should 
pronounce.  What  is  his  view  in  acting  thus?  It  is 
obviously  as  follows.  Mere  penitence  for  past  crime  is  not 
in  law  a  sufficient  atonement,  and  does  not  deserve  full 
pardon.  A  robber  who  confesses  and  promises  to  live  a 
better  life  is  treated  less  harshly  than  a  persistent  criminal, 
but  he  is  not  pardoned  forthwith ;  his  past  life  and  conduct 
are  examined  into,  to  see  what  penalty  is  appropriate  for 
him.  Similarly  Pliny  proceeded  to  investigate  into  the 
past  life  and  conduct  of  the  Christians  with  a  view  to 
determine  what  degree  of  punishment  was  appropriate. 
Having  abjured  Christianity,  they  could  no  longer  be 
condemned  for  the  Name,  as  persistent  confessors  were. 
But  if  they  had  in  their  past  life  been  guilty  of  child- 
murder,  and  cannibalism,  and  other  abominable  crimes,  they 
were  still  amenable  to  the  law,  and  must  stand  further  trial. 
The  analogy  with  the  proceedings  at  Lugdunum  in 
A.D.  177  is  remarkable.  There  also  the  penitents  were 
not  pardoned  fully,  but  an  investigation  was  made  into 
their  past  conduct  as  Christians,  and  the  evidence  of  slaves 


X.    Pliny  s  Report  and  Trajan  s  Rescript.     205 

was  taken.  These  slaves  were  Pagans,  belonging  to  Christian 
masters.  Their  evidence  was  to  the  effect  that  the  Christians 
had  been  guilty  of  abominable  crimes.*  Thereupon,  those 
who  had  abjured  their  religion  were  imprisoned  as  murderers 
and  guilty  criminals,  and  suffered  even  more  than  the  con-  , 
fessors,  who  were  punished  simply  as  Christians.t 

4.  Pliny's  Attitude  towards  the  Christians. 

Pliny  apparently  fully  believed  at  first  that  the  charges 
currently  brought  against  the  Christians  were  well  founded, 
and  that  the  general  proscription,  in  accordance  with  which 
he  condemned  them  instantly  after  confession,  was  founded 
on  their  detestable  rites.  He  proceeded  to  inquire  into 
the  cases  individually  ;  and  he  learned  first  of  all  from 
those  who  recanted,  and  afterwards  from  two  deaconesses 
(who,  being  slaves,  were  examined  under  torture),  that  the 
rites  of  the  Christian  religion  were  simple  and  harmless, 
that  their  discipline  forbade  all  crimes,  that  the  worshippers 
bound  themselves  by  a  sacramentum  to  do  no  wrong, 
and  that  the  charges  commonly  brought  against  them  of 
practising  child-murder,  cannibalism,  and  other  hideous 
offences  at  their  private  meetings  were  groundless.^ 

•  eveVreia  SeiTTva  and  OtStTroSetoi /xi'^eis,  Eusebius,  Hist.  Eccles.,  V.  I. 

t  Afterwards  the  governor  wrote  to  ask  the  Emperor's  instructions 
about  those  culprits  that  were  Romans,  and  in  explaining  the  situation 
mentioned  (apparently  incidentally,  and  not  with  a  view  to  ask  for 
guidance)  what  he  had  done  with  the  penitents  ;  and  the  Emperor  in 
his  rescript  ordered  that  all  penitents  should  be  pardoned. 

X  Neumann  acutely  remarks  that  from  their  answers  we  can  gather 
that  the  questions  put  to  them  were  about  the  very  charges  which 
are  explicitly  mentioned  in  the  proceedings  at  Lugdunum.  See 
above,  note  *.  The  same  charges  are  referred  to  by  Tacitus,  A  nnals, 
XV.  44,  d.h  Jlagitia. 


2o6        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Pliny  clearly  was  much  impressed  with  the  harmlessness 
and  simplicity  which  he  discovered  in  the  principles  of 
the  new  religion.  But  this  general  impression  did  not 
affect  his  attitude  towards  it.  He  still  considers  that  it  is 
a  crime,  and  that  those  whom  he  had  condemned  were 
deserving  of  death  for  obstinacy,  if  not  for  Christianity. 
He  felicitates  himself  on  the  good  results  that  had  been 
already  produced  by  his  action,  and  he  expects  that  by 
a  continuation  of  judicious  and  rigid  enforcement  of  the 
law,  the  sect  may  be  easily  suppressed  and  order  restored. 
He  found  it  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  superstitio  prava 
immodica.  It  was  a  superstitio  (in  other  words,  a  non- 
Roman  worship  of  non-Roman  gods),  in  the  first  place 
a  degrading  system  {prava),  and  secondly,  destructive 
of  that  reasonable  and  obedient  course  of  life  which 
becomes  both  the  philosophic  mind  and  the  loyal  citizen 
{immodicd).  They  had  indeed  been  in  the  habit  of  holding 
social  meetings,  and  feasting  in  common  ;  but  this  illegal 
practice  they  had  abandoned  as  soon  as  the  governor 
had  issued  an  edict  in  accordance  with  the  Emperor's 
instructions,  forbidding  the  formation  or  existence  of 
sodalitates.  None  of  the  fundamental  laws  applied  to 
their  case  ;  they  avoided  breaking  these  laws.  The  only 
question  that  remains  about  the  system  is  whether  in 
itself,  apart  from  its  effect  on  the  life  and  conduct  of  its 
votaries  (which  is  found  by  Pliny  to  be  morally  good),  it 
requires  to  be  prohibited  on  political  or  religious  con- 
siderations ;  and  these  two  were  to  the  Roman  essentially 
connected,  for  the  State  interfered  in  religious  matters 
only  in  so  far  as  they  had  a  political  aspect  and  a  bearing 
on  patriotism  and  loyalty  ;  while  in  other  respects  the  gods 
were  left  to  defend  themselves  (deorum  iniurics  dis  cures). 


X.    Pliny  s  Report  and  Trajan  s  Rescript.     207 

5.  The  Case  was  Administrative,  not  Legal. 

Meanwhile  Pliny  resolved  to  postpone  further  pro- 
ceedings until  he  learned  what  was  the  Emperor's  view 
as  to  the  proper  action  to  take  ;  and  he  mentioned  in  his 
report  that  his  strongest  motive  for  postponing  proceedings 
lay  in  the  consideration  of  the  large  number  of  persons 
affected.  This  leads  to  the  question  under  what  special 
law,  or  in  virtue  of  what  power,  Pliny  understood  the 
proceedings  to  be  conducted.  He  was  too  strict  a 
lawyer  to  take  the  view  that  the  law  should  be  leniently 
administered  because  it  was  disobeyed  by  a  large  number 
of  persons  ;  on  the  contrary,  the  Roman  practice  was 
guided  by  the  maxim  that,  when  offenders  increase  in 
numbers,  an  example  must  be  made  by  enforcing  the 
law  more  strictly  and  energetically.  Accordingly,  Pliny 
cannot  have  conceived  the  matter  as  one  coming  under 
some  definite  law ;  he  understood  it  to  be  a  matter  of 
practical  administration,  and  he  knew,  as  every  Roman 
governor  knew,  by  nature  and  by  training,  that  govern- 
ment must  often  be  a  compromise.  He  might,  by  too 
rigidly  carrying  out  the  general  principle  that  mere 
profession  of  Christianity  was  dangerous  to  law  and 
order  and  deserving  of  death,  increase  rather  than  quiet 
the  disorder,  through  the  number  of  prosecutions.  It 
was  a  case  in  which  much  was  left  to  his  own  judgment, 
in  which  tact  and  governing  capacity  had  full  opportunity; 
in  short,  one  where  he  acted  with  the  full  authority  vested 
in  a  governor  and  administrator,  not  as  the  mere  instru- 
ment and  judge  enforcing  the  penalty  of  a  fixed  and 
definite  law. 

Pliny  must  have  been  under   the   impression    that  his 


2o8        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

action  was  in  accordance  with  the  general  powers  and 
instructions  of  all  governors  of  provinces,  to  maintain 
peace  and  order,  and  to  seek  out  and  punish  all  persons 
whose  action  disturbed,  or  was  likely  to  disturb,  public 
order.*  Such  also  is  the  interpretation  of  Neumann,  who 
has  understood  the  facts  better  than  any  of  his  predecessors. 
This  view  is  confirmed  by  the  character  of  the  corre- 
spondence of  Pliny  with  Trajan.  He  refers  to  the 
Emperor,  not  questions  of  law,  but  questions  of  administra- 
tion and  policy ;  he  asks  for  relaxation  of  law  or  custom 
in  individual  cases,  and,  in  general,  seeks  for  guidance 
in  cases  which  are  left  to  his  own  judgment  and  tact. 
Especially  where  he  thinks  an  exception  might  be  made 
to  a  general  principle,  he  consults  the  Emperor  in  matters 
which  appear  almost  ludicrously  slight ;  but  critics  have 
been  too  severe  on  Pliny,  for  in  these  cases  he  is  really 
only  criticising  the  rules  laid  down  for  him,  and  suggesting 
that  they  may  judiciously  be  relaxed.  Such  examples 
show  how  strictly  Pliny  conceived  himself  to  be  bound  by 
the  general  principles  of  Imperial  policy,  and  how  afraid  he 
was  to  swerve  from  them  in  small  matters  ;  and  he  may  no 
doubt  be  taken  as  a  good  example  of  the  Roman  official. 
The  imperial  policy  ruled  absolutely  in  the  provinces,  and 

*  Digest,  48,  13,  4,  2  :  "  Mandatis  {i.e.,  the  general  instructions 
given  to  each  governor  of  a  province)  autem  cavetur  de  sacrilegiis 
ut  prsesides  sacrilegos  latrones  plagiarios  conquirant,  et  ut,  prout 
quisque  deliquerit,  in  eum  animadvertant."  Digest,  i,  18,  i}^,  ;pref.\ 
"  Ulpianus  libro  VII.  de  officio  proconsuhs.  Congruit  bono  et  gravi 
prassidi  curare,  ut  pacata  atque  quieta  provincia  sit  quam  regit. 
Quod  non  difficile  obtinebit,  si  soUicite  agat  ut  malis  hominibus 
provincia  careat,  eosque  conquirat :  nam  et  sacrilegos  latrones 
plagiarios  fures  conquirere  debet,  et  prout  quisque  deliquerit  in  eum 
animadvertere.' 


X.    Pliny  s  Report  and  Trajan  s  Rescript.     209 

the  emperors,  though  not  present,  were  consulted  before 
even  slight  modifications  of  the  general  rules  were  made. 
The  representatives  who  governed  provinces  were  not 
viceroys  but  merely  deputies.  This  fact  is  very  important 
in  our  present  subject :  the  policy  throughout  the  empire 
towards  the  Christians  was  moulded  by  the  wishes  and 
views  of  the  reigning  Emperor, 

Mommsen  has  pointed  out  the  power  in  the  Roman 
constitution  which  allowed  the  most  prompt  and  effectual 
action  against  the  Christians,  and  which  seems  to  have 
been  always  employed  in  the  proceedings  taken  against 
them.*  The  higher  magistrates  were  entrusted  with  a  very 
large  power  of  immediate  action  on  their  own  responsi- 
bility for  checking  any  disorder  or  abuse,  and  for  correcting 
and  chastising  any  person  who  was  acting  in  a  way 
prejudicial,  or  likely  to  be  prejudicial,  to  the  State.  They 
could,  where  they  thought  it  advisable,  in  such  cases  in- 
flict personal  indignity,  such  as  tearing  the  clothes  and 
beating ;  they  could  order  a  culprit  to  be  for  the  moment 
imprisoned,  and  they  could  fine  him,  or  even  put  him  to 
death,  but  they  were  not  empowered  to  inflict  lasting 
punishments  (such  as  exile  or  imprisonment  for  a  definite 
term),  except  in  so  far  as  the  momentary  act  of  punish- 
ment caused  permanent  results.  Especially  in  the  case  of 
religion  this  magisterial  action  was  widely  and  almost 
exclusively  employed.  The  Roman  religion  was  the  ex- 
pression of  Roman  patriotism,  the  bond  of  Roman  unity, 
and  the  pledge  of  Roman  prosperity.  Magisterial  action, 
prompt  and  vigorous,  was  a   better  and   shorter  way   of 

•  See  his  paper  in  Histortscke  Zeitschrift,  xxviii.,  p.  398,  on  which 
the  ensuing  paragraph  is  founded. 

14 


2IO        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire, 

preventing  the  Roman  citizen  from  neglecting  this  part 
of  his  duties  to  the  State,  and  of  punishing  the  tempter 
who  made  him  neglect  them,  than  any  appeal  to  formal 
law  and  a  formal  trial.  Hence,  although  such  legal  pro- 
cedure was  possible,  it  was  hardly  used,  was  never  de- 
veloped, and  has  no  practical  bearing  on  our  present 
subject.  It  was  by  magisterial  action  alone  that  Isis- 
worship  was  expelled  beyond  the  walls  of  Rome,  that 
worship  of  the  Celtic  deities  was  forbidden  to  Roman 
citizens  by  Augustus,  that  Romans  who  professed  the 
Jewish  religion  were  expelled  from  the  city. 

Pliny  therefore  was  acting  in  virtue  of  his  imperium, 
which  gave  him  power  of  life  and  death  over  all  persons 
within  his  province,  except  Roman  citizens ;  nor  is  there 
any  reason  to  think  that  he  was  the  first  governor  called 
upon  to  act  in  such  cases.  The  supposition  is  therefore 
excluded  that  any  formal  law  had  been  enacted  to  forbid 
Christianity.  We  may  safely  infer  also  that  no  express  edict 
of  any  Emperor  had  been  issued  to  suppress  Christianity. 

The  inference  is  confirmed  by  the  way  in  which  Pliny 
put  the  case  to  the  Emperor.  He  was  in  the  habit  of 
quoting  or  referring  to  any  edict  or  rescript  of  any  emperor 
which  bore  upon  any  question  referred  to  Trajan  ;  and  if  the 
usage  of  previous  proconsuls  in  Bithynia  had  given  pre- 
scriptive force  to  a  point  of  administration,  *  he  mentioned 
the  fact.     But  here  he  refers  to  no  previous  edict  or  law. 

An  instructive  parallel  is  to  be  found  in  Epist.  no.  There 
a  point  is  raised  for  Trajan's  consideration,  a  point  of 
practical  administration,  where  compromise  is  advisable 
or  at  least  allowable.     Pliny  puts  the  case  as  turning  on 

•  See  Epist.  io8. 


X.    Pliny  s  Report  and  Trajan  s  Rescript.     211 

a  point  in  his  instructions  {inandatd)  forbidding  all  dona- 
tions from  cities  to  individual  citizens.  The  question  is 
whether  this  principle  is  retrospective,  whether  prescriptive 
right  of  long  standing  has  any  validity,  and  whether  the 
public  prosecutor  of  Amisos  is  justified  in  demanding  that 
a  donation  given  twenty  years  ago  should  be  refunded. 

In  the  case  of  the  Christians,  not  merely  does  Pliny  not 
state  any  law  or  edict  against  which  they  had  offended, 
but  he  points  out  that  they  had  taken  care  to  avoid  offend- 
ing against  the  edict  which  he  had,  according  to  the  regular 
practice,  issued  on  assuming  command  of  the  province.  In 
the  edict  he  had,  in  accordance  with  the  Emperor's  instruc- 
tions (inandatd),  insisted  on  strict  observance  of  a  law  which 
had  been  suffered  by  preceding  governors  to  fall  into  abey- 
ance— viz.,  the  law  forbidding  sodalitates.  Thereupon  the 
Christians  had  altered  their  practice  so  as  to  conform  to 
the  law. 

6.  Pliny's  Questions  and  Trajan's  Reply. 

Pliny  puts  three  special  questions  to  the  Emperor,  which 
I  have  postponed  in  order  to  bring  them  into  immediate 
connection  with  the  rescript  sent  in  reply  by  Trajan. 

1.  Should  any  discrimination  be  made  between  different 
culprits  on  account  of  youth  ?  In  other  words,  are  extenu- 
ating circumstances  to  be  taken  into  account  ?  * 

2.  Should  those  who  repent  be  pardoned  ? 

3.  What  is  the  precise  nature  of  the  offence  which  is  to 

•  It  is  assumed  throughout  both  letters  that  the  penalty  is  death  ; 
the  question  quatenus puniri  debeat  in  the  preceding  clause  means, 
not  what  degree  of  punishment  should  be  inflicted  ?  but  what 
distinctions  should  be  made  in  the  infliction  of  penalty — i.e.,  should 
extenuating  circumstances  be  taken  into  account,  or  repentance 
ensure  pardon  ? 


212        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

be  investigated  and  punished  ?  Is  the  mere  Name,  without 
any  proof  that  serious  moral  offences  have  been  committed, 
to  be  punished,  or  is  it  definite  crimes  conjoined  with 
the  Name  that  deserve  punishment  ?  In  the  latter  case  it 
is  of  course  implied  .that  the  commission  of  these  grave 
moral  offences  must  be  proved  by  distinct  evidence,  if 
denied  by  the  criminals  (as  it  may  safely  be  assumed  that 
they  will  deny).  In  the  former  case  the  acknowledgment 
of  the  Name  by  the  accused  is  in  itself  sufficient  ground 
for  condemnation. 

Trajan  does  not  formally  reply  to  the  questions  in  this 
form  and  order ;  but  in  his  brief  review  of  the  situation 
and  the  principles  of  action  an  answer  to  each  is  implicitly 
contained.  After  the  long  discussion  which  has  just  been 
given  we  can  readily  understand  his  view. 

1.  Pliny's  procedure  has  been  correct — i.e.,  his  original 
assumption  that  the  Name  of  Christian,  if  persisted  in, 
deserved  the  penalty  of  death,  was  right.* 

2.  No  universal  rule  applicable  to  all  cases  can  be  laid 
down — i.e.,  extenuating  circumstances  are  to  be  considered 
according  to  the  discretion  of  the  governor. 

3.  Penitence  deserves  pardon,  if  shown  in  act  by  com- 
pliance with  rites  of  the  Roman  religion. 

4.  The  governor  is  not  to  search  for  the  Christians  ;  but 
if  they  are  formally  accused  by  an  avowed  (not  by  an 
anonymous)  accuser,  the  penalty  must  be  inflicted. 

This  rescript  does  not  initiate  procedure  against  the 
Christians.  It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  Trajan  for  the  first 
time  laid  down  the  principle,  "  The  Christians  are  criminals 

*  Neumann  has  rightly  emphasized  in  the  strongest  terms  the 
original  action  of  Pliny,  p.  22,  n.  3,  "  Es  kann  nicht  scharf  ge?iug 
letont  werdeny 


X.    Plviys  Report  and  Trajan  s  Rescript.     213 

deserving  death  ;  but  you  may  shut  your  eyes  to  them  until 
an  accuser  insists  on  your  opening  them."  Tr  Ajan's  language  >^ 
is  that  of  one  who  feels  unable  to  contravene  or  to  abrogate 
an  existing  principle  of  the  imperial  government,  but  who 
desires  this  principle  to  be  applied  with  mildness  and  not 
insisted  on.  Neumann  has  rightly  perceived  that  this  is 
the  true  meaning  of  Trajan's  rescript,  and  in  this  respect 
has  made  a  great  advance  on  previous  critics.  It  is  one  of 
the  most  astounding  facts  in  modern  historical  investigation 
that  so  many  modern,  and  especially  German,  critics  of  high 
standing  and  authority,*  have  reiterated  that  Trajan  was 
the  first  to  make  the  Name  a  crime,  and  that  any  Christian 
document  which  refers  to  the  Name  as  a  ground  for  death 
must  be  later  than  his  rescript.! 

7.  The  Christians  were  not  Punished  as  a 
sodalitas. 

Trajan,  like  Pliny  in  his  early  trials,  condemns  the 
Christians  simply  on  their  confession  without  further  ques- 
tion, trial,  or  proof.     They  are  outlaws ;  they  are  treated 

*  Even  those  who  have  not  fully  adopted  this  erroneous  view  have 
often  been  affected  to  some  degree  by  it.  On  the  history  of  the 
view  see  Lightfoot's  note,  Ignat.  and  Folyc,  i.,  p.  7.  M.  Doulcet, 
in  his  Essai  sur  les  Rapports  de  fEglise  Chretienne  avec  I'^tat 
Rontairi,  1883,  p.  52,  reckoned  Wieseler  the  only  scholar  who  declined 
to  accept  this  view  ;  but  Lightfoot  mentions  others.  It  would  be  un- 
fair to  refrain  from  alluding  to  the  many  English  scholars,  Lightfoot, 
Salmon,  Hort,  etc.,  who,  in  writings  or  in  lectures,  have  interpreted 
Pliny  and  Trajan  more  correctly.  But  in  general  their  treatment  of 
the  question  has  suffered  to  some  slight  degree  from  their  treating 
it  as  a  matter  of  formal  and  positive  law,  mstead  of  as  a  question  of 
practical  administration. 

t  The  inference  has  been  drawn  especially  about  First  Peter ;  see 
above,  p.  187. 


214        ^-^^  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

like  brigands  caught  in  the  act.  It  is  necessary  to  insist 
on  this  point,  because  many  high  authorities  differ  from 
the  view  here  stated.  Practically  the  question  comes  to 
this :  were  the  Christians  condemned  for  violating  the 
general  law  (recently  confirmed  by  Pliny's  edict  in  accord 
ance  with  the  imperial  mandatd),  which  regulated  and 
confined  within  very  narrow  limits  the  right  of  forming 
associations  {collegia,  sodalitates),  or  were  they  condemned 
simply  for  the  Name  ?  A  want  of  clearness  and  a  wavering 
between  these  two  essentially  different  forms  of  trial  are 
apparent  in  much  that  has  been  written  on  the  subject 
The  same  writers  who  in  one  page  recognise  that  the  Name 
is  punished,  on  the  next  page  speak  of  the  edict  against 
sodalitates  as  the  ground  on  which  the  Christians  were 
punished.* 

In  answer  to  this  question,  the  following  considerations 
suggest  themselves  : — 

I.  If  the  Christians  had  been  punished  by  Pliny  as  an 
illegal  association  (sodalitas),  he  must  have  put  some  ques- 
tions on  the  point  to  them.  Even  the  most  arbitrary  of 
governors  could  not  condemn  a  criminal  to  death  for  vio- 
lating a  law  without  some  show  of  trial,  some  statement  of 
the  law,  and  some  show  of  testimony,  good  or  bad,  that  the 
criminal  had  broken  the  law  ;  much  less  can  we  suppose 
that  a  strict  lawyer  like  Pliny  would  act  in  so  illegal  a  way. 
Even  a  confession  of  guilt  was  regarded  by  the  Roman  law 
in  some  cases  f  as  insufficient  to  entail  condemnation. 

*  In  the  original  form  of  these  lectures  I  criticised  Mr,  Hardy's 
excursus  on  the  subject ;  but  he  has  informed  me  that  he  has,  since 
the  book  appeared,  modified  his  opinion  there  expressed. 

t  Viz.,  injudicio ;  but  in  cognitions  (pp.216,  398),  acknowledgment 
of  the  charge  suflSced  to  ensure  condemnation. 


X.    Pliny  s  Report  and  Trajan  s  Rescript.     2 1 5 

2.  Pliny  could  not  have  asked  Trajan  what  was  their 
crime,  and  how  he  should  treat  them,  if  he  had  conceived 
them  to  be  a  sodalitas.  It  had  already  been  made  abund- 
antly clear  to  him  by  repeated  rescripts  that  Trajan  would 
not  permit  the  smallest  infraction  or  exception  to  the  law/' 

3.  Pliny  expressly  mentions  that  the  Christians  had  of 
their  own  accord  given  up  a  weekly  meeting  and  a  common 
meal,  which  would  have  constituted  them  a  sodalitas. 

4.  Trajan  would  not  in  his  rescript  have  ordered  Pliny 
to  abstain  from  seeking  out  the  Christians,  if  he  had  under- 
stood them  to  be  a  sodalitas.  He  regarded  the  prohibition 
of  sodalitates  as  a  fundamental  point  in  strong  government 

8.  Procedure. 
The  question  may  suggest  itself,  if  Pliny  was  acting 
on  a  principle  of  administration  carried  out  by  previous 
governors,  whether  of  Bithynia  or  elsewhere,  are  we  not 
obliged  in  accordance  with  what  has  just  been  stated,  to 
conclude  that  he  would  have  quoted  the  action  of  previous 
governors  as  justifying  him  ?  The  answer  is  clear.  He 
does  refer  to  it,  and  explains  why  he  is  uncertain  as  to  its 
character :  he  had  never  taken  part  in  investigations 
{cognitiones)  of  the  case  of  Christians.  Many  points  are 
involved  in  this  short  statement.! 

*  Trajan  would  not  permit  the  formation  of  a  body  of  one  hundred 
and  fifty  firemen  in  a  great  city  like  Nicomedeia  (Epist.  t^t^,  34);  he  also 
forbade  poor  people  to  join  together  for  a  common  meal  at  common 
expense  (Epist.  102,  103).  All  such  unions  were  dangerous,  as  liable 
to  cause  common  action  and  to  assume  a  political  character. 

t  The  import  of  the  phrase  is,  as  a  rule,  disguised  by  the  rendering 
"  I  have  never  been  present  at  "  such  cases.  The  meaning  in  thio 
report  is  :  "  1  never  occupied  such  an  official  position  as  to  be  called 
on  to  decide  or  advise  in  the  case  of  Christians,  and  therefore  I  am 
ignorant  of  the  precise  nature  of  the  proceedings." 


2i6        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire, 

In  the  first  place,  Pliny  and  Trajan  were  obviously  well 
aware  that  such  investigations  were  of  ordinary  occur- 
rence.* 

Secondly,  these  cases  were  cognitiones,  not  formal  trials 
according  to  \^.v^,judicia.  Pliny's  experience  as  a  lawyer 
had  lain  in  ihejudicia  before  the  centumviral  courts,  with  a 
few  political  cases  before  the  Senate.  Cognitiones  might 
indeed  fall  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Senate  and  consuls  ; 
but  it  seems  pretty  certain  that  trials  of  Christians  were 
left  to  the  Emperor  or  his  delegates.f 

The  Emperor  often  delegated  such  cognitiones,  even  in 
Rome,  to  the  prefect  of  the  city,  and  necessarily  in  the 
provinces  to  the  governors.  Pliny  could  not  be  fully 
cognisant  of  the  law  in  such  cases.  He  had  not  hitherto 
governed  a  province,  nor  had  he  been  prefect  of  the  city. 
The  cognitiones  held  by  the  Emperor  were  conducted  in 
private,^  and  only  the  result  was  known  publicly.     Pliny 


*  As  to  the  number  of  such  cases,  the  words  do  not  justify  any 
inference.  I  cannot  agree  with  Mr.  Hardy,  who  says  that  Pliny's 
statement  proves  conclusively  that  the  trials  of  Christians  had  been 
neither  frequent  nor  important,  othens'ise  Pliny  would  not  have  been 
ignorant  of  their  procedure.  The  following  paragraphs  will  prove 
that  the  inference  is  unjustifiable. 

t  Hence  almost  all  cases  of  Christians  that  we  know  of  came 
before  governors  of  provinces,  prefects  of  the  city,  or  the  Emperors 
in  person  (see  Mommsen,  Historische  Zeitschrift,  xxviii.,  p.  414). 

X  This  was  generally,  and  probably  always,  the  case.  See 
Mommsen,  Mom.  Staatsrecht,  ii.,  p.  926,  ed.  ii.  Mr.  Fumeaux  is 
certainly  wrong  (Tacitus,  Annals^  vol.  ii.  p.  577)  when  he  speaks  of 
such  standing  qucestwnes  de  Christianis  as  we  have  in  Pliny's 
letter.  The  process  against  the  Christians  was  invariably,  so  far 
as  evidence  goes,  Imperial  cognition,  exercised  personally  by  the 
Emperor  or  delegated  to  the  prcefectus  urbi  or  to  the  provincial 
governors.    Judicium  before  a  qucestio  was  never  employed. 


X.    Pliny's  Report  and  Trajan  s  Rescript.     217 

could  not  have  been  acquainted  with  the  procedure  in  such 
cognitiones,  except  as  a  member  of  the  consilium,  which  the 
emperors  often  employed  for  consultation.  But  though  he 
had  never  actually  taken  part  in  such  cases,  he  naturally, 
as  a  Roman  lawyer  and  official,  had  a  general  idea  of  their 
character  and  procedure. 

In  conducting  these  investigations  Pliny  followed  a  de- 
finite procedure.  He  put  the  question  three  times  to  each 
person,  giving  full  opportunity  of  repentance.  What  was 
his  reason  for  following  this  course  ? 

A  possible  interpretation  of  his  action  is  that  he  was, 
from  motives  of  pure  humanity,  anxious  to  avoid  inflict- 
ing the  penalty  of  death.  There  is  no  doubt  that  this 
kind  of  action  would  be  quite  in  accordance  with  his 
private  character.  But  we  must  remember  that  Pliny  in 
this  case  is  the  Roman  magistrate  and  judge,  and  that  he 
is  a  man  in  whom  long  experience  as  a  lawyer  and  judge 
had  rendered  dominant  and  habitual  the  strict  law-abiding 
spirit  of  the  Roman.  On  the  judicial  bench  Pliny  was  no 
longer  the  kind  and  generous,  though  rather  weak  and 
affected,  man  whom  we  see  in  his  carefully  studied  letters  ; 
he  is  the  Roman  officer,  trained  in  the  law-courts  in  the 
straitest  Roman  formalism  and  pragmatical  spirit  of  minute 
legality.  He  had  not  the  loftier  character  which  could 
discern  the  spirit  behind  the  letter  of  the  law.  To  him  it 
was  second  nature  to  act  according  to  the  prescribed  forms, 
and  in  this  case  we  must  assume  that  he  did  so.  He  indeed 
says  that  he  had  never  before  taken  part  in  such  trials  ; 
but,  as  we  have  already  seen,  this  does  not  imply  entire 
ignorance  of  the  forms  of  procedure.  It  merely  means 
that  he  did  not  feel  himself  complete  master  in  this  branch 
of  law.     He  could  trust  his  law  to  the  extent  of  executing 


2i8        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

lOO  or  200  persons,*  but  when  it  came  to  a  case  of 
thousands  he  was  not  so  confident. 

Moreover,  Pliny  is  here  reporting  his  procedure  to  the 
Emperor,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  conceives  him- 
self to  be  playing  the  strict  official.  Nothing  could  be 
more  foreign  to  the  Roman  ideal  than  to  allow  that  conduct 
on  the  tribunal  should  be  influenced  by  individual  emotions 
of  compassion  or  humanity.  Severity,  degenerating  even 
into  cruelty,  is  characteristic  of  the  best  and  most  upright 
class  of  Roman  governors  :  lenity,  as  a  general  rule,  was  the 
result  only  of  weakness,  of  partiality,  or  of  carelessness. 
Pliny  certainly  was  most  careful  and  conscientious ;  and 
equally  certainly  he  did  not  consider  that  his  procedure 
would  seem  to  the  Emperor  to  imply  weakness.  We 
observe  also  that  the  same  procedure  obtained  in  numerous 
other  trials  of  later  date,  which  we  cannot  think  were 
modelled  after  Pliny's  example.  The  only  possible 
hypothesis  seems  to  be  that  Pliny  was  acting  according 
to  a  standing  procedure  which  had  grown  up  through  use 
and  wont.  A  succession  of  governors  and  emperors,  apply- 
ing the  general  view  that  Christianity  was  subversive  of 
law  and  order,  and  acting  with  the  same  general  inten- 
tion of  maintaining  law  and  order,  had,  with  the  usual 
legal  constructiveness  characteristic  of  the  Romans,  brought 
about  a  general  procedure  which  had  all  the  force  of  legal 
precedent. 

One  objection  which  might  perhaps  suggest  itself  hardly 
deserves  notice.  If  the  procedure  had  already  become 
habitual,  how  should  Pliny  require  to  consult  the  Emperor 
about  it  ?     If  any  answer  is  needed  after  the  above  discussion 

*  On  the  numbers  see  p.  220. 


X.    Pliny  s  Report  and  Trajan  s  Rescript.     2 1 9 

of  his  position,  we  might  quote  the  fact  that  in  A.D.  177 
the  governor  of  Gallia  Lugdunensis  consulted  Marcus 
Aurelius,  and  received  a  rescript  correcting  his  action  in 
a  fundamental  point.  Even  Septimius  Scverus  was  pro- 
bably consulted  by  his  delegates  ;  for  his  action  towards  the 
Christians  took  the  form  of  one  or  more  rescripts.  The 
governors  wished  to  act  as  the  Emperor  would  act  if  he 
were  present ;  and  hence  in  this  matter,  where  details  were 
left  greatly  to  their  individual  judgment,  they  frequently 
asked  advice. 

9.  Additional  Details. 

Some  details  must  be  noticed  before  we  leave  the  subject. 
The  regular  morning  meetings  which  Pliny  speaks  about, 
and  which,  as  we  know,  must  have  been  weekly  meetings, 
were  not  abandoned,  and  Pliny  obviously  accepts  them  as 
strictly  legal.  Amid  the  strict  regulations  about  societies, 
the  Roman  Government  expressly  allowed  to  all  people 
the  right  of  meeting  for  purely  religious  purposes.*  The 
morning  meeting  of  the  Christians  was  religious  ;  but  the 
evening  meeting  was  social,  including  a  common  meal,  and 
therefore  constituted  the  Christian  community  a  sodalitas. 
The  Christians  abandoned  the  illegal  meeting,  but  con- 
tinued the  legal  one.t  This  fact  is  one  of  the  utmost 
consequence.     It  shows   that   the   Christian   communities 

*  Unless,  of  course,  the  religion  was  a  forbidden  one ;  but  the 
Empire  had  quite  given  up  in  practice,  though  not  in  fheory,  the  old 
objection  to  non-Roman  religions  as  illicit. 

t  Neumann  indeed  considers  that  the  Christians  suspended  even 
the  morning  meeting  for  religious  purposes.  This  seems  not  to  be 
required  by  the  Latin  words,  while  it  is  inconsistent  with  the 
principles  of  the  Christians  to  suppose  that  they  discontinued  their 
Sunday  worship. 


220        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

were  quite  alive  to  the  necessity  of  acting  according  to  the 
law,  and  of  using  the  forms  of  the  law  to  screen  themselves 
as  far  as  was  consistent  with  their  principles. 

Pliny's  language  permits  no  inference  as  to  the  number 
of  executions,  and  we  are  left  entirely  to  individual 
estimate  of  probability.  How  many  examples  would  be 
sufficient  to  produce  the  effect  described  by  Pliny  in  re- 
storing the  disused  worship  of  the  ancestral  gods,  and 
reintroducing  the  disused  temple  ritual  ? 

Probably  the  history  of  the  Church  may  show  that  I  have 
not  exaggerated  in  speaking  of  lOO  or  200.  If  some  sort  of 
remote  analogy  may  be  found  in  the  number  of  witches 
burned  in  Scotland  at  no  very  remote  period,  I  may  seem 
to  have  understated  the  probabilities.  A  certain  lapse  of 
time  is  also  required  to  produce  the  effect  described. 

It  is  also  quite  impossible  to  attain  certainty  as  to 
Pliny's  treatment  of  the  confessors,  whether  he  employed 
torture,  or  condemned  them  to  be  exposed  in  the  amphi- 
theatre, or  took  the  more  merciful  course  of  ordering  them 
to  instant  execution.*  Probably  he  would  follow  the 
usual  course,  which  was  to  utilise  condemned  criminals  for 
the  public  games. 

Trajan's  letter  to  Pliny  applied  only  to  the  single  pro- 
vince. A  copy,  of  course,  was  permanently  preserved  in 
the  governor's  office ;  but  in  the  ordinary  course  of  events 
the  document  would  not  have  any  wider  publicity  or 
influence.     Accident,  however,  gave  this  rescript  an  unusual 

*  The  latter  is  the  ordinary,  but  not  the  necessary,  sense  of  duct 
iusst.  The  phrase  is  perhaps  used  more  generally, ' '  I  ordered  them 
to  be  taken  whither  the  law  directed."  The  torture  applied  to  the 
deaconesses  was  not  punishment,  but  the  preliminary  required  by 
the  Roman  law  before  the  evidence  of  slaves  could  be  accepted. 


X.    Plhiys  Report  and  Trajan  s  Rescript.     221 

importance  both  in  ancient  and  in  modern  times.  It  was 
published  (of  course  by  the  Emperor's  permission)  after  a 
few  years  in  the  collected  correspondence  of  Pliny  and 
Trajan.  It  thus  reached  a  wider  public ;  and  officials, 
who  were  always  eager  to  act  according  to  the  imperial 
wishes,  would  take  it  as  representing  Trajan's  settled 
policy.  Tertullian  was  able  to  quote  this  letter ;  whereas 
he  merely  refers  by  inference  to  the  supposed  reports  of 
Pilate  to  Tiberius,  and  of  Aurelius  to  the  Senate,  assuming 
that,  if  sought  in  the  imperial  archives,  they  may  be  found. 
The  importance  of  Trajan's  rescript  is  twofold,  being  due, 
partly  to  its  internal  character,  partly  to  the  chance  which 
preserved  it  to  our  time.  An  entirely  fictitious  importance 
has  been  attached  to  it,  as  if  it  were  the  first  imperial 
rescript  about  the  Christians  and  defined  for  the  first  time 
the  Imperial  attitude  towards  them.*  Its  real  importance 
is  very  different.  It  marks  the  end  of  the  old  system  of 
uncompromising  hostility. 

A  question  suggests  itself  which  is  of  interest  in  esti- 
mating Pliny's  character,  but  which  does  not  directly  bear  on 
our  purpose.  Was  his  intention  in  consulting  the  Emperor 
merely  to  learn  his  views,  or  had  he  any  wish  and  hope 
that  the  policy  towards  the  Christians  should  be  recon- 
sidered? Personally,  I  can  feel  no  doubt  that  the  latter 
alternative  is  correct.  It  would  of  course  be  unbecoming 
and  unprofessional  to  hint  that  the  imperial  policy  should 
be  reconsidered  ;  but  Pliny  goes  as  far  as  he  could  go 
without  directly  suggesting  it,  and  he  has  conceded  to  the 

•  We  need  not  doubt  that  anxious  reports  from  many  governors 
had  reached  Rome  long  ere  this,  coming  especially  from  Asia 
Minor ;  and  that  the  matter  had  engaged  the  serious  attention  of 
the  Emperors. 


2  22        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire, 

prevailing  anti-Christian  prejudice  enough  to  avoid  the 
appearance  of  hinting.  The  only  respectful  course  for 
him  was  to  profess  ignorance,  and  ask  for  instructions  ; 
and  thus  we  have  the  astonishing  change  in  his  attitude, 
that,  beginning  with  unhesitating  condemnation,  he  ends  by 
addressing  to  the  Emperor  the  charmingly  simple  question, 
"  Am  I  to  punish  them  for  the  Name,  or  for  crimes  co- 
existing with  the  Name?"  He  apologises  more  for  con- 
sulting the  Emperor  on  this  case,  involving  the  lives  of 
many  thousands,  than  he  does  for  any  of  the  other  ques- 
itons,  many  rather  insignificant,  which  he  addresses  to 
him.  The  apology  seems  unsuitably  elaborate  ;  and  we 
cannot  really  appreciate  the  letter,  till  we  understand 
that  the  writer  is  desirous  to  have  the  policy  changed, 
and  yet  shrinks  from  seeming  in  any  way  to  suggest  a 
change. 

Considering  the  confidence  which  Trajan  reposed  in 
Pliny  and  the  friendship  he  entertained  for  him,  we  shall 
not  err  in  believing  that  this  letter  exercised  some  influ- 
ence on  him.  Trajan's  reply  inaugurated  a  policy  milder 
in  practice  towards  the  Christians  ;  and  it  is  a  pleasant 
thought  that  a  writer,  whose  life  gives  us  a  finer  conception 
than  any  other  of  the  character  of  the  Roman  gentleman 
under  the  Empire,  should  be,  in  the  last  months  of  his  life, 
so  closely  identified  with  the  change  of  policy  and  with  the 
first  step  in  the  rapprochement  between  the  Empire  and 
the  Church. 

10.  Recapitulation. 

In  view  of  the  importance  and  the  complication  of  the 
subject,  it  will  be  convenient  to  sum  up  our  results 
here : — 


X.    Pliny  s  Rcp07't  and  Trajan  s  Rescript.     22; 


1.  There  was  no  express  law  or  formal  edict  against  the 
Christians  in  particular. 

2.  They  were  not  prosecuted  or  punished  for  contravening 
any  formal  law  of  a  wider  character  interpreted  as  applying 
to  the  Christians. 

3.  They  were  judged  and  condemned  by  Pliny,  with 
Trajan's  full  approval,  by  virtue  of  the  imperium  delegated 
to  him,  and  in  accordance  with  the  instructions  issued  to 
governors  of  provinces,  to  search  out  and  punish  sacrilegious 
persons,  thieves,  brigands,  and  kidnappers. 

4.  They  had  before  this  been  classed  generically  as 
outlaws  (Jtosies  piblia),  and  enemies  to  the  fundamental 
principles  of  society  and  government,  of  law  and  order  ; 
and  the  admission  of  the  Name  Christian  in  itself  entailed 
condemnation. 

5.  This  treatment  was  accepted  as  a  settled  principle  of 
the  imperial  policy,  not  established  by  the  capricious  action 
of  a  single  Emperor. 

6.  While  Trajan  felt  bound  to  carry  out  the  established 
principle,  his  personal  view  was  opposed  to  it,  at  least  to 
such  an  extent  that  he  ordered  Pliny  to  shut  his  eyes  to  the 
Christian  offence,  until  his  attention  was  expressly  directed 
to  an  individual  case  by  a  formal  accuser,  who  appeared 
openly  to  demand  the  interference  of  the  imperial  govern- 
ment against  a  malefactor. 

7.  A  definite  form  of  procedure  had  established  itself 
through  use  and  wont. 

8.  Pliny,  when  for  the  first  time  required  to  take  part  in 
such  a  case,  used  the  regular  procedure,  either  through 
his  own  general  knowledge  of  a  branch  of  official  duty  not 
specially  familiar  to  him,  or  as  following  the  advice  of  his 
consilium  and  the  precedents  which  they  might  quote. 


224        "^^^^  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

II.  Topography. 

The  province  which  Pliny  governed,  officially  entitled 
BitJiynia  et  Pontus,  was  of  very  wide  extent,  reaching 
from  the  river  Rhyndacos  on  the  west  to  beyond  Amisos 
on  the  east.  The  question  suggests  itself  whether  his 
experiences,  with  regard  to  the  Christians,  extended  over 
the  whole  province,  or  was  confined  to  part  of  it.  Mommsen 
has  shown  that  Pliny  visited  the  eastern  part  of  his  province 
in  the  summer  and  autumn  of  112,  and  that  letters  96  and 
97  were  written  during  this  visit,  perhaps  from  Amisos.* 
It  is  therefore  clear  that  the  events  which  led  to  Pliny's 
letter  took  place  there,  and  that  the  description  of  the  great 
power  acquired  by  the  new  religion  m  the  province  applies 
to  Eastern  Pontus  at  least  But  it  would  not  be  right  to 
restrict  his  description  to  this  part  of  the  province.  The 
general  impression  made  by  the  letter  is,  that  it  describes 
a  condition  of  things  which  was  true  of  the  province  as 
a  whole,  and  was  not  confined  to  a  small  district.  Pliny 
speaks  of  the  cities  {civitates)  in  general  as  being  much 
affected  by  Christianity. 

In  the  letter  Pliny  alludes  to  two  distinct  stages  in  his 
proceedings  against  the  Christians.  In  the  first  stage  he 
acted  without  hesitation,  and  had  no  thought  of  appealing 
to  the  Emperor  for  advice.  But  facts  that  came  to  his 
knowledge  in  the  second  stage  led  him  to  hesitate,  and  to 
stop  further  proceedings  until  he  heard  from  the  Emperor. 
We  may,  then,  feel  fairly  confident  that  the  second  stage 
of  the  proceedings  belonged  to  Eastern  Pontus,  and  that 

*  See  Mommsen' s  paper  on  Pliny's  life  in  Hermes,  iii.,  p.  59.  The 
letters  which  immediately  precede  and  follow  96  and  97  were  written 
from  Amisos. 


X.   Plhiys  Report  and  Trajan  s  Rescript.  225 

the  two  deaconesses  whose  evidence  produced  such  an 
effect  on  Pliny  belonged  to  the  church  of  Amisos,  or  of 
the  immediate  neighbourhood.  This  fact  suggests  some 
reflections  on  the  geographical  distribution  of  Christianity 
in  the  north  of  Asia  Minor. 

We  have  seen,  on  page  10,  that  Amisos  was  the  point  on 
the  north  coast  to  which  the  new  religion  might  naturally 
be  expected  to  spread  earliest.  We  now  find  that  Amisos 
is  the  place  where,  in  A.D.  112  or  113,  renegades  were  found 
in  considerable  number  ;  and  that  some  of  these  claimed 
to  have  abandoned  that  religion  even  twenty-five  years 
previously.  Christianity,  therefore,  was  already  of  some 
standing  in  Amisos  in  A.D.  87  or  88. 

We  have  seen  that  in  the  earlier  stage  of  the  proceedings 
all  the  accused  persons  were  confessors  :  renegades  appeared 
only  in  the  later  stage  in  Eastern  Pontus.  This  implies, 
probably,  that  in  the  western  parts  Christianity  was  more 
recent,  and  that  greater  boldness  was  required  to  be  a 
Christian  ;  whereas  about  Amisos  the  religion  had  spread 
more  widely,  and  was  more  powerful,  so  that  there  might 
even  be  advantages  in  belonging  to  such  a  strong  and 
closely  united  sect.  We  are  therefore  again  brought,  by 
a  new  line  of  argument,  to  the  conclusion  that  Amisos 
was  the  first  city  on  the  Black  Sea  to  which  Christianity 
spread. 

As  to  the  date  when  this  took  place,  it  was,  on  the  one 
hand,  some  time  before  87-88  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
would  naturally  be  later  than  the  spread  of  Christianity 
along  the  main  Eastern  highway  to  Ephesus  and  other 
Asian  cities,  about  55-57.  We  may  fairly  place  the  entrance 
of  the  new  religion  into  Amisos  about  65-75  A.D. 


15 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE  ACTION  OF  NERO   TOWARDS  THE  CHRISTIANS. 

WE  have  learned  from  Pliny  that  actions  against  the 
Christians  had  become  habitual  before  the  acces- 
sion of  Trajan,  and  that  a  form  of  procedure  had  grown  up. 
Neumann,  though  differing  in  some  respects  from  our 
estimate  of  Pliny's  evidence,  is  quite  agreed  on  this  point. 
The  next  question  that  comes  up  is,  when  did  this  habitual 
action  originate.  Neumann  dates  its  origin  in  A.D.  95,  and 
supposes  it  to  be  founded  on  an  edict  of  the  Emperor 
Domitian.  But  we  have  already  seen  that  Pliny's  action 
was  not  founded  on  any  law  or  edict,  but  was  that  of 
a  practical  ruler  and  governor  interpreting  a  fixed  but 
unwritten  principle  of  policy.  Moreover,  the  opposition  of 
the  Empire  is  too  settled  and  confirmed  to  be  explained  in 
this  way.  An  edict  of  Domitian  might  be  overturned  by  a 
word  from  Trajan  ;  *  but  Trajan  clearly  regarded  the  pro- 
scription of  the  Christians  as  a  fundamental  principle  of  the 
Imperial  policy,  which  he  did  not  choose,  or  shrank  from 
trying,  to  alter. 

We  cannot  then  accept  Neumann's  view,  and  must  look 
for  some  more  deep-seated  reason  for  the  hostility  of  the 
Empire  to  the  new  religion.  Our  authorities  for  the  time 
of  Domitian  are  so  scanty  that  we  are  reduced  to  hypothesis 
about  it ;  and  we  have  to  go  back  to  the  reign  of  Nero  to 
find  another  well-attested  moment  in  the  Imperial  action. 

*  See  Mommsen,  Siaaisrechi,  ii.,  p.  1069,  ed.  ii. 
S26 


XI.    Action  of  Nero  tozvards  Christians.    227 
I.  Tacitus,  Annals,  xv.  44. 

In  the  famous  chapter  of  Tacitus  about  the  persecution 
of  the  Christians  under  Nero  in  64  A.D.,  we  have  a  docu- 
ment very  different  in  character  from  Pliny's  report  to 
Trajan ;  and  the  difficulties  which  face  us  in  the  attempt  to 
estimate  rightly  its  meaning  and  value  are  of  a  different 
order. 

1.  It  is  written  for  publication,  and  composed  with  a 
view  to  literary  effect ;  and  the  question  arises  in  several 
points,  how  much  is  to  be  attributed  to  rhetoric  and  how 
much  to  faithful  description  of  the  facts  ? 

2.  It  is  written  more  than  fifty  years  after  the  events  by 
an  historian,  who  was  a  child  when  they  took  place,  and 
who  was  entirely  dependent  on  the  evidence  of  others.  / 
In  regard  to  many  points,  a  doubt  arises  whether  Tacitus 
may  not  have  been  attributing  to  the  earlier  period  the 
knowledge  and  the  feelings  of  the  time  when  he  was 
writing  ;  and  it  is  at  least  certain  that  Tacitus  could  not, 
even  if  he  tried,  altogether  free  himself  from  the  additional 
experiences  of  fifty  years.  He  must  write  from  a  more 
developed  point  of  view. 

Any  question  as  to  Tacitus'  veracity  in  matters  of  fact 
need  not  trouble  us.  He  certainly  took  the  greatest  care 
to  seek  out  good  authorities  and  to  compare  them  with  each 
other,  and  to  state  facts  as  they  occurred* 

Nor  need  we  touch  on  the  genuineness  of  the  chapter. 

*  The  bias  which  undoubtedly  exists  in  his  work  is  founded  on 
his  inability  even  to  see,  much  more  to  sympathise  with,  the  finer 
sides  of  Imperial  policy  In  matters  of  detail  and  fact  he  was  a 
very  careful  investigator,  and  tried  to  be  an  accurate  recorder,  though 
his  straining  after  literary  effect  often  veils  his  description  of  facts. 


2  28        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

There  have  been,  and  perhaps  always  will  be,  occasional 
doubts  ;  but  they  belong  to  the  curiosities  of  literature: 

As  to  the  extent  to  which  Tacitus'  account  is  coloured 
by  the  circumstances  of  his  own  time,  the  most  diverse 
opinions  have  been  held.  It  has  been  maintained*  that 
Tacitus  took  his  materials  for  describing  the  Christians  of 
Nero's  time  from  the  letter  of  Pliny,  which  we  have  just 
been  discussing,  that  he  adopted  from  him  the  term 
fatebantiir,  deepened  Pliny's  superstitio  prava  innnodica 
into  superstitio  exitiabilis,  and  used  th&Jlagitia  which  Pliny 
speaks  of  as  an  explanation  of  the  popular  hatred  of  the 
Christians.  Bauer  has  even  used  this  theory  as  a  proof 
that  the  letter  of  Pliny  is  genuine. 

In  direct  contradiction  to  this  theory  it  has  been  stated  f 
that  "the  ignorance  of  Tacitus  on  this  subject  is  more 
remarkable  because  his  friend  Pliny  had  already  learned 
the  ways  of  Christians  while  governor  in  Asia  Minor." 
This  implies  the  view  that  Tacitus  had  strictly  adhered  to 
the  ignorant  accounts  of  contemporaries,  and  had  intro- 
duced nothing  of  the  knowledge  which  was  possessed  by 
some,  at  least,  of  his  contemporaries.^ 

We  shall  neither  accuse  Tacitus  of  ignorance  about  what 

*  By  B.  Bauer,  Christus  und  die  Ccesaren,  1877,  p.  273.  Not 
having  access  to  the  book,  I  follow  the  account  given  by  Arnold, 
"Die  neronische  Christenverfolgung'''  p.  105. 

t  By  Holbrooke,  Tac.  Ann.,  note  on  xv.  44. 
j  X  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Tacitus  possessed  as  much  know- 
ledge of  the  Christians  as  any  Roman  did  at  this  period,  because 
( I )  he  had  been  proconsul  of  Asia,  the  chief  stronghold  of  Christianity, 
about  1 1 2-1 16,  before  he  is  believed  to  have  composed  the  Annals 
(see  the  inscription  of  Mylasa  quoted  in  Bull,  de  Corr.  Hell.,  1890, 
p.  62 1 ) ;  (2)  he  is  known  to  have  taken  great  pains  to  collect  evidence 
for  his  history,  and  to  have  consulted  Pliny  about  another  point  ia 
preparation  for  his  earlier  great  work. 


XI,    Action  of  Nero  towards  Christians.    229 

was  known  to  Pliny,  nor  shall  we  credit  him  with  thrusting 
Pliny's  ideas  into  a  period  to  which  they  were  foreign.  We 
shall  try  whether  it  be  not  possible  to  believe  Tacitus,  when 
he  claims  to  be  describing  the  state  of  public  '"eeling  and 
belief  in  A.D.  64  ;  even  though  we  also  consider  that  he  was 
probably  quite  aware  of  Pliny's  investigation  and  its  results. 
We  hold  that  Tacitus  wished  and  tried  to  describe  the 
events  of  this  year  64  and  of  other  years  as  they  occurred ; 
though  we  quite  acknowledge  that  he  could  not  divest 
himself  of  his  knowledge,  and  could  not  possibly  write 
exactly  as  he  would  have  written  if  the  Annals  had  been 
composed  in  the  reign  of  Nero. 

It  is  not  possible  to  determine  the  meaning  of  Tacitus' 
words  with  the  same  certainty  as  in  the  case  of  Pliny's 
letters.  Here,  as  usual,  the  attempt  to  disentangle  from 
the  rhetoric  of  Tacitus  the  precise  and  exact  facts  which  he 
is  describing  cannot  be  successful,  for  it  is  hardly  possible 
to  rise  above  individual  subjective  judgment,  and  attain  an 
interpretation  which  shall  be  quite  certain.  In  such  a  case 
it  is  of  the  first  consequence  to  determine  from  independent 
witnesses,  even  to  a  small  extent,  the  exact  state  of  the 
facts.  Several  other  writers  have,  on  authority  quite  in- 
dependent of  Tacitus,  alluded  to  or  described  the  action 
of  Nero  towards  the  Christians.  The  earliest  of  these  is 
Clement  of  Rome,  a  contemporary  and  probably  an  eye- 
witness ;  but  his  reference  is  too  slight  and  general,  and 
is  not  confined  to  this  persecution  alone.  It  will  be  con- 
sidered in  a  later  chapter. 

2.  The  Evidence  of  Suetonius. 
The  chief  independent  witness  is  Suetonius,  who   was 
certainly  acquainted  with  the  work  of  Tacitus,  with  whom 


230        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

he  undoubtedly  had  personal  acquaintance.  He  has 
apparently  used  and  followed  the  authority  of  Tacitus  in 
some  few  passages,  *  and  it  is  a  quite  fair  assumption  that 
he  was  acquainted  with  Tacitus'  view.  Among  a  list 
of  police  regulations  to  ensure  good  order  in  Rome,t  he 
mentions  the  punishment  of  the  Christians,  a  class  of 
persons  characterised  by  a  novel  and  mischievous  super- 
stition. His  list  enumerates  what  he  evidently  considers 
as  examples  of  good  administration.  They  are  all  of  the 
nature  of  permanent  police  regulations  for  maintaining 
order  and  good  conduct.  He  mentions  the  sumptuary 
regulations,  the  institution  of  the  sportula  in  place  of  the 
publica  cena,  the  prohibition  of  the  sale  of  any  cooked  food 
except  vegetables  in  the  cook  shops,  the  infliction  of  punish- 
ments on  Christians,  the  prohibition  of  the  disorderly  revels 
of  the  charioteers,  etc.  Every  other  regulation  which  is 
mentioned  in  the  list  is  the  permanent  institution  of  a 
custom,  or  the  lasting  suppression  of  an  abuse.  It  would  be 
quite  inconsistent  with  the  others  to  introduce  in  the 
midst  of  them  a  statement  which  meant  only  that  a  number 
of  Christians  were  executed  on  the  charge  of  causing  a 
fire.  The  fair  and  natural  interpretation  of  Suetonius' 
words  is,  that  he  considered  Nero  to  have  maintained  a 
steady  prosecution  of  a  mischievous  class  of  persons,  in 
virtue  of  his   duty   to  maintain  peace  and  order  in   the 


*  See  especially  Vespas,  §  4,  where  he  speaks  of  the  general 
expectation  of  the  period  that  out  of  Judaea  were  to  spring  they  that 
should  rule  the  world.  Cp.  Tac,  Hist.,  v.  13  ;  Teuffel-Schwabe, 
rom.  Litteratur,  §  347,  8  ;  Arnold,  "Die  neronische  Christenver- 
folgimg,'"  p.  38.  I  shall  have  occasion  often  to  quote,  and  sometimes 
to  criticise,  the  latter  useful  monograph. 

t  Ner ,  §  16. 


XI.   Action  of  Nero  towards  Christians.    231 

city,  and  to  have  intended  that  this  prosecution  should  be 
permanent.  Such  a  steady  prosecution  implies  a  permanent 
settled  policy  ;  and  if  the  chapter  of  Suetonius  had  been  the 
only  extant  passage  of  a  pagan  writer  referring  to  the 
subject,  the  view  which  is  here  stated  would  in  all  proba- 
bility have  been  universally  accepted.  As  we  see,  this 
interpretation  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  all  we  have 
gathered  from  Pliny. 

Contrast  with  this  Suetonius'  account  of  the  action 
taken  by  Claudius  in  the  case  of  the  disturbances  which 
took  place  among  the  Jews  in  Rome  about  A.D.  52.* 
This  measure,  which  is  obviously  a  single  act  suited  to  a 
special  occasion,  and  does  not  involve  the  institution  of  7 
any  general  rule,  is  mentioned  along  with  the  taking  away  / 
of  freedom  from  Lycia,  the  giving  of  freedom  to  Rhodes, 
the  remission  of  tribute  of  the  Ilians,  the  permitting  of  the 
German  ambassadors  to  sit  beside  the  Armenian  and 
Parthian  envoys  in  the  orchestra.  The  whole  list  is  of  the 
same  kind, — individual  and  single  exertions  of  authority  in 
special  cases.  None  of  them  involves  a  general  principle  or 
the  institution  of  a  permanent  rule  applicable  to  all  cases  of 
a  class. 

Comparison  of  these  two  passages  of  Suetonius  shows 
that  he  considered  the  action  of  Nero  as  different  in  cha- 
racter from  that  of  Claudius.  The  latter  expelled  all  Jews 
from  Rome ;  but,  as  we  know  from  other  authorities,  this 
was  a  mere  single  isolated  act,  and   involved  no  lasting 

*  Claud.,  %  25.  Here  we  have,  according  to  the  generally  ac- 
cepted view,  a  proof  that  the  Christians  were  still  considered 
under  Claudius  to  be  a  mere  Jewish  sect ;  and  dissensions  between 
Christians  and  Jews  were  described  in  the  authorities  employed  by 
Suetonius  as  "  continued  disturbances  among  the  Jews." 


232        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

judgment.  The  former,  on  the  contrary  laid  down  a 
permanent  principle  regulating  the  attitude  of  the  govern- 
ment towards  the  parties  affected,  viz.,  the  Christians  ;  and 
this  inference  would  certainly  have  been  drawn  by  all 
historians  had  it  not  been  for  the  authority  of  Tacitus,  who 
has  been  interpreted  as  contradicting  the  view  naturally 
suggested  by  Suetonius.  Now,  even  if  Tacitus'  words 
were  as  strongly  opposed  to  this  view  as  is  usually  thought, 
it  might  be  plausibly  argued  that  Suetonius  was  almost 
certainly  acquainted  with  Tacitus'  opinion,  and  intention- 
ally dissents  from  it ;  and,  as  he  used  excellent  authorities, 
his  express  contradiction  must  be  accepted.  But  I  believe 
that  Tacitus'  description  has  in  parts  been  misunderstood, 
and  that  there  is  no  serious  contradiction,  but  a  slightly 
different  and  more  detailed  version  of  the  same  facts. 
Suetonius  gives  merely  a  brief  statement  of  the  permanent 
administrative  principle  into  which  Nero's  action  ultimately 
resolved  itself  Tacitus  prefixes  to  his  account  of  the  same 
result  a  description  of  the  origin  and  gradual  develop- 
ment of  Nero's  action  ;  and  the  picture  which  he  draws  is 
so  impressive  and  so  powerful  as  to  concentrate  attention, 
and  withdraw  the  mind  of  the  reader  from  the  final  stage 
and  the  implied  result  of  the  Emperor's  action. 

3.  First  Stage  in  Nero's  Action. 
Let  us  then  turn  to  Tacitus'  account,  and  try  to  dis- 
entangle the  facts  as  they  were  conceived  by  him.  To  do 
so  successfully,  we  must  try  as  much  as  possible  to  look 
from  Tacitus'  point  of  view,  and  to  assume  the  tone  and 
the  emotion  with  which  he  looked  down  from  the  lofty, 
serene  height  of  philosophy  on  the  toil,  and  zeal,  and 
earnestness,  and  enthusiastic  errors  of  miserable  Christians. 


XL   Action  cf  Nero  towards  Christians.    233 

According  to  Tacitus,  Nero  wished  to  divert  from  him- 
self the  indignation  which  was  universally  entertained 
against  him  as  the  author  of  the  conflagration  which 
destroyed  great  part  of  Rome  in  A.D.  64.  He  turned 
to  his  purpose  the  popular  dislike  of  the  new  sect  of 
fanatics,  who  were  generally  detested  on  account  of  the 
abominable  crimes  of  which  they  were  supposed  to  be 
guilty,*  and  who  were  nicknamed  by  the  populace  "  Chris- 
tians." He  laid  the  blame  of  the  fire  on  them,  as  being 
enemies  of  society,  eager  to  injure  the  city. 

The  Christians,  therefore,  were  sought  out.  Those  first 
of  all  who  openly  confessed  the  charge  of  Christianity 
were  hurried  to  trial.  Then  on  the  information  elicited  at 
their  trial,t  many  others  were  involved  in  their  fate,J  far 

*  Tacitus  probably  exagfgerates  the  popular  hatred  (p.  346). 

t  The  word  indiciiun  is  obviously  not  used  in  its  strict  sense  of 
evidence  given  by  a  criminal  who  denounces  his  accomplices  on 
promise  of  impunity,  nor  can  we  suppose  that  the  first  arrested 
Christians  voluntarily  called  attention  to  others;  hence  we  must 
understand  information  elicited  from  them  during  their  trial. 

X  I  see  no  reason  either  to  adopt  the  almost  universally  accepted 
emendation  convicti  for  coniuncti,  or  to  have  recourse  to  Boissier's 
awkward  co7iiuiicti  reperti  sunt.  Tacitus'  rhetoric  is  responsible 
for  the  doubts.  We  must  accept  the  MS.  reading  (corrected  in  all 
but  the  original  and  important  MS.).  Tacitus  does  not  expressly 
state  in  precise  terms  that  the  accused  were  condemned :  "  they 
were  hurried  to  trial ;  they  were  executed  with  novel  refinements 
of  punishment."  Had  he  said  merely  this  he  could  not  have  been 
misunderstood ;  all  would  have  recognised  the  rhetorical  device 
which  leaves  the  essential  point  of  condemnation  to  the  reader, 
and  hurries  on  to  the  final  scene.  But,  in  order  to  picture  the 
hurry  still  more  effectively,  a  sentence  referring  to  a  second  class  of 
criminals  is  interposed  between  the  two  clauses  which  describe  the 
trial  and  the  punishment  respectively ;  and  so  we  have  the  form  : 
"  First,  some  were  tried  ;  then  others  were  involved  in  the  same 
fate  :  they  were  executed,"  etc.     Cuq  alone  prefers  the  MS.  reading. 


234        ^'^^  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire* 

less  on  the  charge  of  incendiarism,  than  of  hostility  to  society 
and  hatred  of  the  world.*  Their  punishment  was  turned 
into  an  amusement  to  divert  the  populace  ;  for  example, 
they  were  made  to  play  the  part  of  Actaeon  torn  by  his 
dogs,  or  were  fixed  on  crosses  t  to  be  set  on  fire,  and  to 
serve  as  torches  at  nightly  festivities  held  in  the  Vatican 
Gardens, 

4.  Second  Stage:  Charge  of  Hostility  to 
Society. 

But  the  trials  and  punishments  of  the  Christians  con- 
tinued even  after  all  pretence  of  connection  with  the  fire 
had  been  abandoned.  The  safety  of  the  people,  it  was 
argued,  required  that  these  enemies  of  society  should   be 

interpreting  coniuncti  SiS  a  legal  term  in  the  sense  of  "  called  on  to 
answer  the  same  charge."  Arnold,  with  some  justice,  protests 
against  the  technical  term  in  this  highly  rhetorical  passage.  I 
should  rather  understand  a  bold  Tacitean,  not  technical,  but  poetical 
usage,  such  as  Ann.,  xiii.  17:  Nox  eadem  necem  Britannici  et 
rogum  coniunxit  (cp.  Ann.,  vi.  26,  iv.  57,  n,  etc.,  for  various  bold 
uses  of  this  verb).  "  They  were  put  side  by  side  with ' '  (or  immediately 
after)  "  the  first  class  of  culprits." 

*  Haud  ;perinde  is  to  be  interpreted  on  the  analogy  of  xiii,  21, 
where  Agrippina,  defending  herself  against  Silana's  accusation  that 
she  had  plotted  against  her  own  son  Nero,  says  7ieque  ;proinde  a 
farentibus  liberiquam  ab  impudica  adulteri  mutafitur.  "  Parents 
are  not  so  ready  to  change  their  children  as  a  shameless  woman 
like  Silana  is  to  change  her  lovers  " — i.e.,  while  Agrippina  would  not 
actually  deny  that  parents  occasionally  turn  away  from  their  own 
children,  the  other  case  is  infinitely  more  common.  So  here  Tacitus 
is  not  prepared  to  assert  that  no  one  was  actually  involved  in,  and 
convicted  on,  the  charge  of  incendiarism  ;  but  the  other  charge  was 
far  more  common. 

t  Arnold's  alteration,  sunt,Jlammandiutque,  is,  I  think,  a  change 
in  the  right  direction  ;  but  the  general  sense  is  not  doubtful. 


XL   Action  of  Nero  towards  Christians.    235 

severely  dealt  with  ;  and  more  general  charges  of  employing 
unlawful  means  to  affect  the  minds  of  their  victims  among 
the  people  and  turn  them  from  the  ways  of  their  fathers, 
were  brought  against  them,  and  easily  proved.  There  can 
be  no  question  that  this  action  was  at  first  popular  with 
the  mob.  It  furnished  them  with  an  object  on  which  to 
direct  for  the  moment  the  rage  and  frenzy  aroused  by  the 
great  fire  ;  and  popular  feeling  was  already  against  the 
Christians.  But,  as  Tacitus  emphatically  says,  and  as  Pliny 
afterwards  attests,  the  judgment  of  the  mob  on  the  origin 
of  the  fire  was  not  permanently  blinded  :  Nero  was  the 
real  culprit,  and  not  these  miserable  victims.  At  last 
popular  feeling  veered  round,  and  the  Roman  public  began 
to  feel  compassion  for  the  Christians.  Guilty  indeed  they 
were,  and  well  deserved  was  their  punishment ;  but  the 
people  thought  that  they  were  being  exterminated  rather 
to  gratify  the  cruelty  of  an  individual  than  from  considera- 
tion of  the  common  weal. 

On  this  interpretation  we  observe  a  remarkable  analogy 
to  the  action  of  the  English  law-courts  and  people  during 
the  "  Popish  Plot  "  in  1679 — action  which  in  respect  of 
brutality,  injustice,  and  unreasoning  credulity,  furnishes  a 
fit  parallel  to  the  Neronian  trials.  We  have  first  a  frenzy 
of  terror  and  rage  against  the  Christians,  who  are  tried  on 
the  charge  of  incendiarism.  In  the  fear  and  excitement  of 
the  people,  witnesses  were  easily  found,  and  immediately 
believed.  Soon,  however,  some  variety  in  the  accusations 
was  needed,  and  this  was  supplied  by  the  hatred  of  society 
{odium  humani  generis),  of  which  the  Christians  were  uni- 
versally believed  to  be  guilty.  The  new  charge  was 
obviously  as  easily  proved  and  as  readily  credited  as  the 
first.     But  gradually  popular  feeling  changed  both  in  Rome 


236        The  Chwch  in  tJie  Roman  Empire. 

in  64  and  in  England  in  1679.     The  number  of  executions 
sated  the  people,  and  a  reaction  occurred. 

To  understand  the  development  of  Nero's  action,  it  is 
necessary  to  conceive  clearly  and  precisely  what  is  meant 
by  the  hatred  of  the  world  with  which  the  Christians  were 
charged  (odium  hurnani  generis).  It  was  not  the  mere 
abstract  emotion  of  which  they  were  accused,  but  the 
actions  in  which  that  emotion  manifested  itself.  To  the 
Romans  genus  humanuni  meant,  not  mankind  in  general, 
but  the  Roman  world — men  who  lived  according  to  Roman 
manners  and  laws  ;  the  rest  of  the  human  race  were  enemies 
and  barbarians.  The  Christians  then  were  enemies  to 
civilised  man  and  to  the  customs  and  laws  which  regulated 
civilised  society.  They  were  bent  on  relaxing  the  bonds 
that  he>ld  society  together  ;  they  introduced  divisions  into 
families,  and  set  children  against  their  parents  ;  and  this  end 
they  attained  by  nefarious  means,  working  on  the  minds  of 
their  devotees  by  magical  arts.*  All  this  they  did  with  a 
view  to  practise  their  abominable  crimes  {fiagitia)  more 
freely.  So  elastic  an  accusation  was  easily  proved  in  the 
excited  state  of  popular  feeling.  The  Christians  were  in 
,  truth  hostile  to  certain  customs  practised  freely  in  Roman 
society,  but  considered  by  them  as  vicious  or  irreligious  ; 
and  the  principle  was  readily  admitted  that  he  that  is  an 
enemy  to  a  part  is  an  enemy  to  the  whole.     The  Christians 

•  Odium  humani  generis  was,  as  Arnold  aptly  points  out,  the 
crime  of  poisoners  and  magicians,  p.  23,  n.  i.  The  punishments 
inflicted  on  the  Christians  under  Nero  are  those  ordered  for  magicians . 
Paullus,  Sentent.  V.  23, 17,  "  Magicce artis conscios summo su^j>licio 
ajffici  ;placuif,  id  est,  bestiis  obici  aut  cruet  suffigi.  Ipsi  autem 
?nagi  vivi  exuruntur"  Constantine  ordered  that  feralis  pestis 
absumai  those,  who  used  magic  arts  {Cod.  Theodos.,  vs..  16,  5);  and 
also  that  hai'us^ices  should  be  burned  {ib.  ix.  16,  i). 


XL    Action  of  Nero  towards   Christians.     it^J 

were  bent  on  destroying  civilisation,  and  civilisation  must 
in  self-defence  destroy  them.*  > 

The  crime  of  employing  magical  arts  to  compass  their 
nefarious  purposes  was  closely  connected  with  this,  and 
was  even  more  easily  proved.  The  extraordinary  influence 
which  the  new  religion  acquired  over  its  votaries,  thel^ 
marvellous  reformation  which  it  wrought  in  its  converts, 
the  enthusiastic  devotion  and  unbending  resolution  of  the 
whole  body,  were  all  proofs  that  supernatural  means  and 
forbidden  arts  were  employed. 

Tacitus  has  been  criticised  on  the  ground  that  there  is  no 
authority  to  prove  that  such  flagitia  were  attributed  to  the 
Christians  earlier  than  the  second  century. 

Putting  out  of  sight  that  in  i  Peter  ii.  I2,  "they  speak 
against  you  as  evildoers,"  f  these  popular  accusations  are 
distinctly  referred  to,  we  may  reply  that  numerous  historical 
examples  show  that  such  crimes  were  likely  to  be  attributed 
to  the  private  meetings  of  the  Christians  from  the  begin- 
ning. It  is  a  real  difficulty  to  understand  how  Fronto,  the 
monitor  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  could  credit  these  flagitia  ;  \ 
but  there  is  needed  no  proof  that  Tacitus  is  right  in  attri- 
buting the  belief  to  the  vulgar  of  the  year  64.  We  find  in 
his  words  a  strong  proof  that  he  is  giving  the  views  held 
in  64,  and  not  those  which  he  himself  entertained.  We 
need  not  suppose  that  so  careful  an  investigator  credited 
them,  especially  as  he  so  carefully  and  specially  restricts 
the  belief  to  the  vulgar  and  the  past. 

•  In  this  connection  the  phrase  utilitate  fublica  is  important. 
Obviously  Nero  assigned  the  common  interest  as  the  reason  for  his 
continued  persecution  of  the  Christians. 

t  KaraKaKoivra  v\t.(i>v  coy  KaKOiroiiov. 

X  According  to  the  representation  of  his  words  by  Minucius  Felix, 
Oct.  9  and  31 


238        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

5.  Crime  which  the  Christians  Confessed. 

Some  other  points  in  Tacitus'  description  need  a  word. 
As  to  the  words  qui  fatebantur,  what  crime  did  they  con- 
fess ?  Arnold  understands  that  they  acknowledged  the 
charge  of  incendiarism,  and  gave  information  against  other 
Christians  as  guilty  of  the  same  crime.  Credat  JudcBUS 
Apella :  to  me  this  seems  absolutely  incredible ;  and  the 
suggestion  which  Arnold  makes  that  the  Christians  were 
partially  implicated  in,  or  at  least  privy  to,  the  criminal  act 
appears  impossible.  Moreover,  this  view  is  contrary  to  the 
recorded  facts.  If  so  many  of  the  Christians  acknowledged 
the  crime  on  their  trial  and  denounced  others,  their  com- 
plicity in  the  crime  would  necessarily  have  been  accepted 
by  the  popular  opinion.  But  Arnold  himself  shows  clearly 
that  the  popular  opinion  remained  ultimately  unshaken 
about  the  author  of  the  fire,  and  that  the  revulsion  of 
popular  feeling  which  finally  occurred  was  due  to  the 
growing  conviction  that  the  Christians  were  innocent  and 
ill-treated.  Such  a  conviction  could  never  have  grown 
up  if  the  Christians  had  in  numbers  confessed  the  crime. 

The  difficulty,  which  requires  from  Arnold  seven  pages 
of  examination,  seems  to  arise  entirely  from  the  compression 
of  Tacitus'  style,  and  to  disappear  as  soon  as  we  make 
explicit  the  thought  which  is  in  his  mind,  and  which  he 
expects  his  readers  to  have  in  their  minds — viz.,  "The 
Christians  were  sought  out."  Assuming  this  step  as  implied 
in  the  context,  *  Tacitus  then  proceeds,   "  Those  who  ac- 


•  This  thought  is  implied  in  the  brief  introductory  sentence : 
dbolendo  rumori  Nero  subdidit  reos  et  pcenis  affecit  Christianas  ; 
^ritnutn  correpti  qui  fatebantur.    This  is  the  sequence  of  the 


XL   Action  of  Nero  towards  Christians.    239 

knowledgcd  the  charge  (of  being  Christians)  were  hurried  to 
trial."  The  form  of  expression,  assuming,  but  not  making 
explicit  in  words,  a  thought  implied  in  the  circumstances, 
is  quite  in  the  style  of  Tacitus. 

There  is  here  implied,  precisely  as  in  Pliny's  letter,  a 
distinction  between  two  classes  of  Christians — those  who 
made  no  secret  of  their  religion,  but  openly  professed,  and, 
we  may  perhaps  add,  taught  and  preached  it,  and  those 
who  were  not  known  to  their  neighbours  as  Christians. 
We  may  safely  conclude  that  the  latter  were  the  great 
majority.  It  is  clear  that  in  outward  appearance  they 
must  have  avoided  all  show  of  difference  from  their  pagan 
neighbours.  Situated  as  they  were  in  the  midst  of  a  society 
where  numberless  little  acts  of  life  daily  expressed  respect 
for  the  common  religion,  these  persons  must  in  outward 
show  have  conformed  with  the  common  fashion  and  the 
ordinary  usages  of  politeness,  though  strictly  taken  such 
usages  implied  belief  in  an  idolatrous  worship.*  It  is  of 
course  well  known  that  much  controversy  existed  in  the 
Church  during  the  early  centuries  as  to  how  far  such  con- 
formity with  the  usages  and  conventions  of  society  was 
right  or  permissible ;  and  it  is  obviously  a  very  delicate 
point,  on  which  considerable  difference  of  honest  opinion 
is  sure  to  exist,  as  to  where  such  conformity  ceases  to  be 
mere  compliance  with  polite  conventions,  and  becomes  an 
acknowledgment  of  false  religion. 

narrative,  for  all  that  is  interposed  between  Christianos  andi^rimum 
is  a  parenthetical  description  of  the  Christians.  When  the  parenthesis 
is  omitted,  the  sense  oi  fatebantur  is  clear.  Hardly  any  one  before 
Arnold  felt  a  diflBculty. 

•  For  example,  the  pagan  formula  D(is)  M(anibus)  was  sometimes 
used  on  Christian  graves.     See  below,  p.  435f. 


240        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 


6.  Character,  Duration,  and  Extent  of  the 

Neronian  Persecution. 

The  analogy  between  the  narrative  of  Tacitus  and  that 
of  Pliny  is  great ;  *  but  the  inference  drawn  from  it  that 
Tacitus  coloured  his  narrative  through  his  knowledge  of 
the  situation  in  the  second  century  is  incorrect.  There  is 
an  even  more  striking  analogy  in  certain  respects  between 
the  conduct  of  Pliny  and  that  of  the  governor  of  Gallia 
^Lugdunensis  in  A.D.  I77.t  In  each  case  the  resemblance 
is  due  to  the  essential  similarity  in  the  circumstances,  and 
not  to  the  colour  imparted  by  the  narrator. 

In  the  words  of  Tacitus,  taken  by  themselves,  there  is 
nothing  to  suggest  that  the  prosecution  of  the  Christians 
continued  for  several  years  ;  but  at  the  same  time  there 
is  nothing  inconsistent  with  this  conclusion,  which  was 
suggested  by  the  words  of  Suetonius.  As  we  have  seen, 
Tacitus  asserts  that  the  larger  number  (as  the  passage  has 
been  interpreted  above,  the  far  larger  number)  of  the 
accused  must  have  been  condemned  on  the  ground  of 
hatred  of  the  world  and  hostility  to  society.  This  went  on 
till  the  Roman  populace  was  sick  of  it,  and  began  to  pity 
the  sufferers.  Here  we  have  the  one  expression  in  the 
whole  paragraph  that  can  safely  be  used  as  an  indication  of 


*  Besides  the  points  mentioned  already  in  this  chapter  {/ate- 
bantur,  indicia,  Jlagitid)  Tacitus  uses  the  phrase  su^erstitio 
exitiabilis,  Pliny  superstitio  j)rava  ifnmodica. 

t  See  above,  p.  204.  The  similarity  would  certainly  be  much  more 
striking  if  we  had  the  report  addressed  by  the  governor  to  Marcus 
Aurelius  ;  but  we  only  know  the  situation  as  it  appeared  to  the 
Christians  in  Lugdunum. 


XI.   Action  of  N'ero  towards  Christians.    241 

the  extent  of  the  persecution.  The  phrase  ingens  multitudo 
alone  might  quite  well  be  interpreted,  in  a  writer  like 
Tacitus,  as  indicating  that  the  number  arrested  and  tried 
was  great  in  view  of  the  charge — viz.,  incendiarism,  in 
which,  as  a  rule,  only  a  small  number  of  persons  are 
likely  to  unite.  But  it  can  have  been  no  inconsiderable 
number  and  no  short  period  which  brought  satiety  to  a 
populace  accustomed  to  find  their  greatest  amusement  in 
public  butcheries,  frequently  recurring  on  a  colossal  scale. 
Accordingly  those  writers  who  would  minimise  the  whole 
occurrence  and  treat  it  as  the  execution  of  a  few  Jews,  find 
this  statement  a  difficulty.  Schiller  treats  it  as  absolutely 
false  and  incredible  ;  and  he  considers  that  any  novelty  or 
intensification  of  cruelty  in  the  form  of  execution  would  be 
only  an  additional  amusement  to  the  jaded  nerves  of  the 
mob.*  It  certainly  is  a  statement  well  deserving  of  careful 
thought;  but  probably  few  will  agree  with  Schiller  in  think- 
ing it  absolutely  incredible  that  the  Roman  populace  could 
ever  grow  tired  of  butchery,  or  could  ever  feel  that  a 
persecuted  class  had  been  unfairly  treated.  It  must,  how- 
ever, be  confessed  that  there  is  no  third  alternative.  Either 
Schiller  is  right  and  the  statement  incredible,  or  else  there 
must  have  been  a  great  and  long-continued  massacre. 

On  these  grounds  we  conclude  that  if  Tacitus  has  \l 
correctly  represented  his  authorities,  the  persecution  of  \ 
Nero,  begun  for  the  sake  of  diverting  popular  attention,  | 
was  continued  as  a  permanent  police  measure  under  the  | 
form  of  a  general  prosecution  of  Christians  as  a  sect/ 
dangerous  to  the  public  safety.  / 

•  Schiller,    Gesch.   d.   Kaiserreichs   unter  der  Regierung  des 
Nero,  p.  437.     I  quote  it  from  Arnold,  not  having  access  to  the  book. 

16 


242        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire, 

7.  Principle  of  Nero's  Action. 

As  we  have  seen,  Pliny  implies  that  the  attitude  of  the 
Government  towards  the  Christians  was  governed  by  a 
principle  which  was  already  in  existence  before  Trajan's 
time.  The  next  question  that  awaits  us  is  whether  the 
principle  is  the  same  as  that  introduced  by  Nero. 

The  answer  must  be  in  the  negative,  Pliny  and  Trajan 
both  assume  that  Christianity  is  in  itself  a  crime  deserving 
of  death.  No  question  is  asked,  no  investigation  is  made, 
about  crimes  committed  by  the  Christians  ;  the  acknow- 
ledgment of  the  Name  entails  immediate  condemnation. 
But  under  Nero  it  is  otherwise.  The  trial  is  held,  and  the 
condemnation  is  pronounced,  in  respect  not  of  the  Name, 
but  of  serious  offences  naturally  connected  with  the  Name 
(Jiagitia  cohccrentia  nomint).  These  offences  are,  in  the 
first  place,  incendiarism,  and  secondly,  hostility  to  civilised 
society,  which,  as  we  saw,  implied  the  practice  of  magic 
and  tampering  with  the  established  customs  of  society. 

Now  we  can  admit  that  a  certain  rhetorical  manner  veils 
the  bare  facts  in  Tacitus's  narrative  ;  but  we  cannot  admit 
that  he  has  seriously  misrepresented  them.  We  have 
founded  our  interpretation  on  the  view  that  he  is  accurate 
and  trustworthy,  and  we  cannot  now  abandon  it 

The  action  which  he  attributes  to  Nero  is  essentially 
different  from  the  practice  of  Trajan's  time.  Tacitus  was 
familiar  with  the  later  practice ;  and,  since  he  describes 
Nero's  action  as  different  from  it,  we  must  conclude  that 
he  is  following  older  authorities.  Unless  they  had  been 
conclusive  on  this  point,  he  would  naturally  have  de- 
scribed the  action  of  Nero  as  similar  to  that  of  his  own 
time. 


XI.   Action  of  Nero  towards  Christians.    243 

The  chapter  of  Tacitus  describes  the  action  of  A.D.  64 ;  | 
and  Nero  reigned  four  years  longer.  Now  the  development 
is  easy  from  the  stage  described  by  Tacitus  (in  which  proof 
is  required  that  an  accused  Christian  has  committed  some 
act  of  hostility  to  society)  to  the  further  stage  implied  by 
Pliny  (in  which  it  is  assumed  that  Christians  are  all  guilty 
of  such  hostility,  and  may  be  condemned  offhand  on  con- 
fession of  the  Name),  Was  this  further  step  taken  in  the 
later  years  of  Nero,  and  mentioned,  as  we  must  then  sup- 
pose, by  Tacitus  in  a  later  chapter  ? 

Within  the  reign  of  Nero  there  is  hardly  enough  time 
for  such  a  development.  The  persecution  began  in  64,  and 
it  was  obviously  at  an  end  when  Nero  left  Rome  towards 
the  end  of  66*  It  had  been  continued  by  the  Emperor 
after  the  people  had  become  sick  of  it ;  and  when  his 
personal  influence  was  withdrawn,  it  can  hardly  have  con- 
tinued. Flavius  Sabinus,  who  was  prefect  of  the  city  at 
the  time,  was  not  a  person  likely  to  urge  it  on  actively,  and 
the  populace  was  opposed  to  it. 

It  is  true  that  Sulpicius  Severus,  whose  account  of  the  | 
Neronian  persecution  is  founded  on  Tacitus,  and   stated  i 
almost  in  his  words,  proceeds,  "  This  was  the  beginning  of !' 
severe  measures   against   the  Christians.      Afterwards   the 
religion  was  forbidden  by  formal  laws,  and  the  profession 
of  Christianity   was    made   illegal    by  published   edicts."t' 
But  the  value  of  this  late  evidence  depends  entirely  on  its] 


•  This  does  not  mean  that  executions  of  Christians  ceased  entirely, 
but  that  they  were  sporadic.  The  fact  remains  always  that  Chris- 
tianity, as  a  disturbing  influence,  was  opposed  and  punished  by  the 
State,  whenever  anything  of  a  marked  character  drew  the  attention 
of  the  Government  to  it. 

t  Chron.,  ii.  29. 


244        ^'^^  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

source ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  author's 
account  of  the  Neronian  persecution  has  no  authority, 
except  in  so  far  as  he  quotes  from  Tacitus.  Now  this 
statement  was  certainly  not  founded  on  anything  that  was 
said  in  the  Annals  ;  for  the  chapter,  xv.  44,  has  the 
appearance  of  summing  up  the  whole  subject  of  Nero's 
attitude  towards  the  Christians,  and  there  seems  to  be  no 
opportunity  for  Tacitus  to  resume  it  in  the  conclusion  of 
the  work.* 

/    There  are  then  only  two  alternatives  in  regard  to  the 

/statement  of  Sulpicius  Severus,     Either  it  is  a  pure  ampli- 

'  fication  of  his  own,  inconsistent  with  Tacitus  and  possessing 

no  authority,  or  it  must  be  interpreted  as  referring  to  the 

I  action   of  subsequent   emperors.      I   incline  to  the   latter 

alternative.     Sulpicius  having  described  the   beginning  of 

persecution  under  Nero,  adds  a  sentence  briefly  describing 

the  repressive  measures,  more  marked  in  theory,  but  not 

more   terrible    in   action,    which    were   decreed    by   later 

emperors. 

But,  as  we  have  inferred  from  Suetonius,  Nero  introduced 
the  principle  of  punishing  the  Christians.  Is  the  account 
given  by  Tacitus  consistent  with  this  ?  The  answer  must 
be  affirmative.  In  any  single  trial  the  general  principle 
must  have  been  laid  down  that  certain  acts,  which  all 
Christians  were  regularly  guilty  of,  were  worthy  of  death. 
Even  after  Nero  left  Rome,  the  prefect  of  the  city  would 


•  The  extant  part  of  the  Annals  brings  down  the  history  till  the 
summer  or  autumn  of  66.  Before  the  end  of  66  Nero  went  away  to 
Greece,  and  only  returned  in  68,  just  in  time  to  hear  of  the  revolt 
of  Vindex.  During  the  few  weeks  of  his  reign  that  remained,  his 
attention  must  have  been  absorbed  with  more  pressing  needs  than 
the  trials  of  Christians. 


XL    Action  of  Nero  towards  Christians.    245 

be  bound  to  follow  the  example  set  by  the  Emperor  ;  for 
it  would  be  treason  to  dispute  or  disregard  it* 

When  Nero  had  once  established  the  principle  in  Rome, 
his  action  served  as  a  precedent  in  every  province.  There 
is  no  need  to  suppose  a  general  edict  or  a  formal  law.  The 
precedent  would  be  quoted  in  every  case  where  a  Christian 
was  accused.  Charges  such  as  had  been  brought  against 
Paul  in  so  many  places  were  certainly  brought  frequently 
against  others ;  and  the  action  of  the  Emperor  in  Rome 
would  give  the  tone  to  the  action  of  the  provincial  governors. 

We   conclude,   therefore,   that   between   68  and   96  the  ' 
attitude   of  the   State   towards    the  Christians   was    more  . 
clearly  defined,  and  that  the  process  was  changed,  so  that  | 
proof    of    definite   crimes    committed    by   the    Christians 
{fiagitia  cohccrentia  nomini)  was   no   longer   required,  but  ' 
acknowledgment  of  the  Name  alone  sufficed  for  condemna- 
tion,    Nero  treats  a  great  many  Christians  as  criminals, 
and   punishes  them   for  their   crimes.     Pliny   and  Trajan 
treat   them   as   outlaws   and   brigands,   and  punish    them 
without  a  reference  to  crimes. 

8.  Evidence  of  Christian  Documents. 

Finally,  we  have  to  ask  what  is  the  evidence  of  contem- 
porary Christian  documents.  In  the  Apocalypse  and  in 
First  Peter  the  development  has  taken  place,  and  Christians 
suffer  for  the  Name.  Both  these  documents  have  been 
referred  to  this  period,  the  former  by  many  recent  critics, 

•  If  the  widely  entertained  opinion,  that  St.  Paul  was  executed 
in  A.D.  67  or  68,  be  ri>jht,  we  have  an  example  of  the  trials  which 
took  place  during  Nero's  absence  before  one  of  his  delegates, 
probably  the  prefect  of  the  city. 


246        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

the  latter  by  tradition,  which  supposes  St.  Peter  to  have 
perished  in  the  Neronian  persecution.  But  in  the  following 
chapter  we  shall  try  to  show  that  both  belong  to  the  latter 
[part  of  the  first  century.  As  to  the  other  documents  of 
ithis  period  (admitting,  as  we  do,  the  authenticity  of  the 
!  Pastoral  Epistles),  we  find  in  them  no  hint  about  persecution 
for  the  Name.  Persecution  is  indeed  alluded  to  as  imminent 
on  all ;  but  it  is  not  an  organised  persecution  directed  by 
the  Government,  nor  do  we  find  explicit  references  to 
j  punishment  for  the  Name  simply.  The  advice  given  by 
St.  Paul  as  to  the  relations  of  the  Christians  to  the  society 
in  which  they  are  placed,  is  always  in  accordance  with  the 
situation  which  we  have  described  as  occupied  by  them 
under  Nero.  They  should  avoid,  as  far  as  is  consistent 
with  religion,  the  appearance  of  interfering  with  the  pre- 
sent social  order.  The  proper  rule  of  life  is  to  accept  the 
world's  facts,  not  as  in  themselves  right,  but  as  indifferent, 
and  to  waste  no  time  and  thought  on  them.  Slaves  must  be 
obedient.  In  society  Christians  are  to  observe  the  courtesies 
of  life,  though  these  had  often  a  religious  appearance. 

The  most  developed  and  pointed  expressions  in  Paul 
are  perhaps  l  Tim.  vi.  i,  where  slaves  are  counselled  to 
"  count  their  own  masters  worthy  of  all  honour,  that  the 
name  of  God  and  the  doctrine  be  not  blasphemed,"  and 
Titus  ii.  4,  5,  where  the  young  women  are  advised  to 
maintain  strictly  the  proper  relations  of  family  life,  "  that 
the  word  of  God  be  not  blasphemed."  In  both  cases  the 
position  of  Christians  in  pagan  households  is  not  merely 
not  excluded,  but  is  even  the  prominent  idea.*     The  es- 

*  In  the  former  passage  heathen  masters  are  expressly  meant, 
for  Christian  masters  are  distinguished  in  the  next  verse.  In  the 
latter  the  analogy  of  i  Peter  ill.  i  shows  what  the  true  significance  is. 


XI.   Action  of  Nero  tcwaj'ds  Christians.    247 

tablishcd  social  order  must,  where  possible,  be  respected,  for 
any  vain  interference  with  it  will  give  rise  to  calumnies 
and  accusations  against  the  Christians  who  bear  the  name 
of  God,  and  against  the  doctrine  which  they  teach. 

James  ii.  6  stands  on  the  same  plane  as  the  passage 
which  has  just  been  quoted  from  i  Timothy  :  "  Do  not  the 
rich  persecute  you,  and  themselves  drag  you  before  the 
judgment-seats?  Do  not  they  blaspheme  the  honourable 
name  by  the  which  ye  are  called?"  Here  and  in  i  Tim.  vi.  i, 
the  name  is  not  spoken  of  in  the  tone  used  twenty  years 
later,  when  it  becomes  almost  a  technical  formula.*  The 
danger  about  65-70  is  that  calumnies  and  false  charges  be 
circulated,  and  the  Christians  tried  for  these  imputed  crimes. 
In  such  trials  recantation  is  not  sought  for,  and  would  be  I 
no  palliation  of  the  crimes  charged  against  the  Christians. 

All  these  familiar  passages  suit  the  close  of  the  Neronian 
period,  as  we  have  described  it.  It  would,  however,  require 
a  special  chapter  to  go  over  the  Epistles  of  Paul  from  this 
point  of  view,  and  to  show  their  agreement  with  the  facts 
which  we  have  elicited  from  Tacitus  and  Suetonius.  As  in 
all  early  Christian  literature,  the  persecutions  to  which  the 
Christians  are  liable  occupy  much  less  space  than  might 
perhaps  be  expected  ;  only  in  a  passing  word  or  an  obscure 
implication  is  any  attention  paid  to  them.  But  through 
the  period  that  engages  our  attention  paucity  of  references 
to  persecutions  can  never  be  taken  as  a  proof  that  none 
were  going  on.  Probably  "  the  doctrine  "  would  never  have 
surmounted  them,  if  the  attention  of  its  teachers  had  been 
much  given  to  them. 


•  That   stage  is  marked   in    these   pages  by   using  the   capital. 
James,  strictly,  does  not  bear  on  our  present  subject,  see  p.  349. 


248        The  C/mrch  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Incidentally  we  may  here  note  that  the  tone  of  the 
Pastoral  Epistles  in  this  respect  is  consistent  only  with  an 
early  date.  It  is  difficult  for  the  historian  of  the  Empire 
to  admit  that  they  were  composed  after  that  development 
of  the  Imperial  policy  towards  the  Christians  which  oc- 
curred (as  we  shall  see  in  the  following  chapter)  under  the 
1  Flavian  Emperors. 

But  as  this  remark  touches  on  a  keenly  controverted 
point,  a  little  more  space  may  fitly  be  devoted  to  the  sub- 
ject. I  take  Holtzmann's  Pastoralbriefe,  p.  267,  as  the 
most  complete  statement  of  the  opposite  view,  that  the 
references  to  persecution  denote  a  late  date  towards  the 
middle  of  the  second  century.* 

The  seeking  out  of  the  Christians  (Stco^t?,  Biwyfioi;)  is 
alluded  to  in  2  Tim.  iii.  12  (hLoixOwovrai)  ;  but  it  was 
practised  from  the  first  day  of  the  Neronian  persecution. 
The  suffering  of  affliction  and  persecution  (jcaKOTradelv)  is 
the  lot  of  all  Christians  (2  Tim.  iii.  12,  etc.)  ;  but  the  kind 
of  suffering  is  expressly  defined  as  the  same  to  which  Paul 
himself  was  exposed,  and  Holtzmann  cannot  surely  be 
serious  when  he  quotes  these  passages  as  a  proof  of  a 
second  century  date  (2  Tim.  iii.  11,  iv.  17,  18).  There 
were  some  who  showed  cowardice,  and  shrank  from  en- 
during the  persecution  ;  but  we  need  not  ask  for  proof  that 
recantation  occurred  in  Nero's  time,  as  well  as  in  the 
second  or  the  third  century.     The  suffering  is  endured  by 


•  Among  Holtzmann's  indications  of  later  date,  none  appear 
strong.  An  analogy  to  Apuleius  does  not  tell  much  in  favour  of 
the  date  he  assigns,  1 12-150.  Every  analogy  to  anything  men- 
tioned in  later  literature  is  taken,  most  uncritically  and  unhistori- 
cally,  as  a  proof  that  an  early  date  is  impossible.  Such  analogies 
often  merely  prove  general  similarity  in  the  situation ;  see  p.  204-5. 


XI.   Action  of  Nero  towards  Christians.    249 

the  Christian  as  if  he  were  a  malefactor,  and  this  treatment 
is  complained  of  as  unjust  (2  Tim.  ii.  9) ;  but  that  is 
exactly  the  tone  of  the  Ncronian  period,  and  the  Greek 
word  KaKovfrfo<i  refers  expressly  to  the  fiagitia,  for  which 
the  Christians  were  condemned  under  Nero,  and  for  which 
they  were  no  longer  condemned  in  A.D.  112.  Finally 
Holtzmann  quotes  rightly  the  analogy  between  i  Peter  ii.  12 
and  I  Tim.  vi.  i,  Titus  ii.  5,*  and  between  i  Peter  iv.  15  and 
2  Tim.  ii.  9.  But  it  is  precisely  these  verses  in  i  Peter  which 
mark  that  epistle  as  retaining  traces  of  earlier  feeling,  and 
as  standing  in  the  transition  from  the  Ncronian  period  to 
the  formulated  persecution  of  the  Flavian  period,  when 
the  Name  is  explicitly  prohibited.  Moreover,  the  fiagitia 
were  a  standing  reproach  in  all  periods. 

Holtzmann  appeals  to  the  use  of  ^aa-iX.et'^  in  the  plural 
in  I  Tim.  ii.  2,  as  a  proof  that  conjoint  emperors  were 
reigning  at  the  time.  It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the  use 
of  the  plural  often  furnishes  an  excellent  and  conclusive 
criterion  of  date.  On  this  ground  we  may  probably  date 
the  Acta  of  Carpus  and  Papylus,  the  True  Word  of 
Celsus,  and  several  other  documents,  in  the  joint  reign 
of  M.  Aurelius  and  L.  Verus.  Even  though  the  singular 
^ao-tXeu?  be  used  in  the  same  document,  the  argument  is 
still  valid  ;  for  the  singular  was  the  ordinary  usage,  into 
which  a  writer  was  apt  to  slip.f     This  rule  can  be  proved 

•  B\a(T(}>T]fie'ip  is  used  in  Clement,  Epist.,  §  47  ;  but  that  is  no  proof 
that  the  Epistles  to  Timothy  were  composed  at  the  same  time  as 
Clement's  letter  to  the  Corinthians.  I  do  not  know  what  date 
Holtzmann  assigns  to  Clement's  Epistle^  or  whether  he  quotes  this 
analogy  as  a  proof  of  the  date  of  Timothy. 

t  I  cannot  therefore  agree  with  the  inference  that  Lightfoot  draws 
from  the  use  of  the  singular  by  Celsus.  See  his  Igtiat.  and  Folyc.y 
i-  P-  530,  593  "»  edition  II. 


250        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

by  the  usage  of  Athenagoras,  and  many  other  writers.* 
But  the  case  is  quite  different  in  i  Tim.  ii.  2 ;  the  writer 
directs  that  a  general  rule  be  observed  to  pray  "for  all 
men  ;  for  kings  and  all  that  are  in  high  place."  The  term 
^ao-Ckewv  without  the  article  cannot  be  understood  as  de- 
noting "the  emperors  who  are  reigning  at  the  present 
time  ;  "  it  means  "  emperors  (or  sovereigns)  in  general." 

Where  any  definite  information  has  reached  us,  we  find 
that  the  accusations  made  against  the  Christians  through- 
out the  reigns  of  Claudius  and  Nero  are,  as  a  rule,  of  the 
type  just  described — e.g.,  at  Philippi,  "  these  men  set  forth 
customs  which  it  is  not  lawful  for  us  to  receive  or  observe, 
being  Romans  "  (Acts  xvi.  21)  ;  at  Thessalonica  "they  that 
have  turned  the  world  upside  down."  On  the  other  hand, 
where  the  accusation  was  a  purely  religious  one — as  at 
Corinth,  "this  man  persuadeth  men  to  worship  God  con- 
trary to  the  law  "(Acts  xviii.  13) — the  Roman  governor 
refused  to  listen  to  a  charge  that  was  not  on  "  a  matter  of 
wrong  or  of  wicked  villany."  So  St.  Paul's  judges  in  Pales- 
tine agreed  that  there  was  no  real  charge  against  him,  and 
that,  if  he  had  not  appealed  to  the  Emperor,  he  might 
have  been  set  free. 

One  charge  especially,  which  soon  afterwards  became  a 
i  standing  one  and  the  regular  test  and  touchstone  of  perse- 
1  cution,  is  never  alluded  to  under  Nero  :  this  was  the  refusal 
to  comply  with  the  established  and  official  worship  of  the 
emperors.  That  religion,  though  widely  and  willingly 
practised  in  the  provinces,  was  not  yet  explicitly  adopted 
by  the  State  as  a  political  institution.     Disrespect  to  the 


*  Many  of  the  cases  are  rightly  quoted  by  Holtzmann,  p.  269 ;  see 
also  Neumann,  p.  58  n 


XI.    Action  of  Nero  towards  Christians.   251 

Emperor  had  indeed  already  been  treated  in  Rome  as 
treason  {majestas,  aae/Seca)  ;  but  there  is  no  evidence  that 
as  yet  this  charge  had  been  brought  against  the  Christians  * 
or  that  compliance  with  the  rites  of  the  Imperial  religion 
was  formally  proposed  to  them  as  the  test  of  their  faith. 
That  treatment  belongs  to  the  later  period,  and  marks  the 
stage  when  they  are  condemned  for  the  Name,  and  when 
their  death  constitutes  them  "  Witnesses "  (jxdpTupe'i)  to 
the  Name.  Under  Nero  they  are  not  martyrs  in  the  strict 
sense  ;  they  are  only  sufferers. 

The  action  of  Nero  inaugurates  a  new  era  in  the  relation 
of  the  Empire  towards  Christianity ;  or,  to  speak  more 
precisely,  the  Empire  then  for  the  first  time  adopted  a 
definite  attitude  towards  the  new  religion.  So  says  Sue- 
tonius, and  Tacitus  does  not  disagree.  Hitherto  the  Roman 
officials  had,  on  the  whole,  treated  the  Christians  with 
indifference,  or  even  with  favour  mingled  with  contempt 
(see  p.  133).  Where  they  acted  harshly,  either  they  were 
influenced  by  the  enmity  of  influential  Jews,  or  they  punished 
the  Christians  as  being  connected  with  disturbances,  which 
were  due  in  whole  or  in  part  to  their  presence  and  action. 
But  after  64  A.D.  the  example  set  by  the  Emperor  necessarily 
guided  the  action  of  all  Roman  officials  towards  the  Chris- 
tians. As  yet,  however,  the  religion  was  not  in  itself  a 
crime. 


•  Treason  is,  indeed,  involved  in  the  charge  at  Thessalonica : 
"  These  all  act  contrary  to  the  decrees  of  Caesar,  saying  that  there 
is  another  King,  one  Jesus."  But  this  and  similar  instances  are 
quite  different  in  type  from  the  charge  of  treason  founded  on  refusal 
to  worship  the  Emperor.  They  belong  to  an  early  period,  before  the 
charge  had  been  formulated  in  its  developed  shape. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  FLAVIAN  POLICY  TOWARDS  THE   CHURCH. 

DURING  the  two  years  that  immediately  followed  the 
death  of  Nero,  the  anarchy  and  confusion  of  the 
struggle  for  power  would  naturally  prevent  any  development 
in  the  Imperial  policy.  The  attention  of  the  rival  emperors 
and  of  the  governors  of  provinces  must  have  been  almost 
entirely  concentrated  on  the  great  struggle  ;  and  none  but 
the  most  pressing  business  of  government  can  have  been 
attended  to.  We  thus  reach  the  year  70,  when  the  Flavian 
dynasty  was  firmly  settled  in  power.  Here  unfortunately 
we  lose  the  guidance  of  Tacitus,  whose  Histories  of  the 
Flavian  period  would  have  doubtless  cleared  away  the 
obscurity  which  envelops  this  critical  time  in  the  relations 
of  the  Church  to  the  Empire.  We  possess  only  the  brief 
biographies  of  Suetonius,  which  are  personal  studies,  not 
formal  history,  Xiphilin's  epitome  of  the  history  of  Dion 
Cassius,  and  various  other  even  poorer  documents.  In  the 
dearth  of  contemporary  and  trustworthy  authorities  we  are 
compelled,  unless  we  leave  this  period  a  blank,  to  have 
recourse  to  hypothesis.  The  development  in  the  State 
action,  which  has  been  alluded  to  on  p.  242,  must  fall 
between   70  and  96.      What  can  we  learn  or  conjecture 

about  the  way  in  which  it  took  place  ? 

253 


XII.    Flavian  Policy  towards  the  Church.    253 


I.  Tacitus'  Conception  of  the  Flavian  Policy. 

It  will  serve  our  purpose  best  to  begin  by  considering 
the  attitude  of  Tacitus  as  a  historian  towards  the  Christians. 
In  Annals,  xv.  44,  he  introduces  them  into  his  pages.* 
After  mentioning  the  names  popularly  applied  to  them  and 
the  hatred  popularly  entertained  towards  them,  he  describes 
their  origin  and  early  history.  From  this  elaborate  and 
careful  introduction  we  may  infer,  first,  that  Tacitus,  with 
the  fuller  knowledge  of  their  importance  as  a  factor  in 
Roman  history  which  he  possessed  in  A.D.  I20,t  considered 
this  to  be  the  moment  when  they  entered  on  the  stage  of 
his  history ;  and,  second,  that  the  carefulness  and  parade 
with  which  the  new  factor  is  introduced  mark  the  entrance 
of  a  figure  which  is  to  play  some  important  part  in  the 
tragedy.^  In  the  conclusion  of  the  Annals,  as  we  have 
seen,  this  figure  can  have  played  no  part  ;  but  in  the 
Histories  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Christians  were 
mentioned  several  times.  Although  this  work  is  lost,  except 
for  the  years  68-70,  we  have  in  the  pages  of  Sulpicius 
Severus,  as  has  been  proved  by  Bernays,§  an  epitome 
of  one  important  passage.  This  fourth  century  writer  used 
Tacitus  carefully  :  he  made  extracts  almost  verbatim  from 
the  account  of  the  Neronian  persecution  in   the  Annals ^ 

*  In  the  Histories,  which  were  written  before  the  Annals,  the 
Christians  were  certainly  mentioned  as  a  developed  sect.  Tacitus 
wrote  the  Annals  to  lead  up  to  the  completed  Histories. 

t  Taking  this  as  a  rough  date  for  the  composition  of  Anttals,  xv. 

X  We  must  remember  that  in  the  ancient  plays  every  important 
figure  is  formally  introduced  to  the  audience  at  its  first  appearance. 

§  See  his  paper,  a  masterpiece  of  analysis,  iiber  die  Chronik  des 
Sulpicius  Severus,  republished  in  his  Gesammelte  Abhatidlungen. 


254        "^^^  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire, 

XV.  44  ;  and  Bernays  has  discussed  his  relation  to  Tacitus, 
and  has  shown  that  there  are  strong  signs  of  a  Tacitean 
origin  in  Sulpicius'  narrative  of  the  council  of  war,  which 
was  held  after  the  capture  of  Jerusalem.  In  this  council 
different  opinions  were  expressed.  Some  thought  that  the 
temple  should  be  left  uninjured.  Others,  and  among  them 
Titus  himself,  expressed  the  view  that  the  Temple  especially 
ought  to  be  destroyed,  in  order  that  the  religions  *  of  the 
Jews  and  of  the  Christians  might  be  more  completely 
extirpated;  for  these  religions,  though  opposed  to  each 
other,  had  yet  the  same  origin.  The  Christians  had  arisen 
from  amongst  the  Jews  ;  and,  when  the  root  was  torn  up, 
the  stem  would  easily  be  destroyed. 

This  speech  cannot  be  supposed  to  embody  the  actual 
words  of  Titus.  Very  probably  it  was  composed  by 
Tacitus  himself ;  but  its  importance  is  even  greater  in  that 
case,  for  it  would  then  embody  the  historian's  mature 
conception  of  the  nature  of  the  Flavian  policy  towards  the 
Christians,  as  shown  in  the  whole  course  of  their  rule. 
Whether  then  it  gives  an  abstract  of  Titus'  actual  speech, 
reported  by  some  member  of  the  council,  or  was  composed 
by  Tacitus,  it  is  a  historical  document  of  the  utmost 
importance,  and  we  must  examine  it  carefully.  In  Titus' 
speech  the  difference  between  Judaism  and  Christianity  is 
fully  recognised;  but  the  fact  is  not  grasped  that  the 
latter  was  quite  independent  of  the  Temple  and  of 
Jerusalem  as  a  centre.  Titus  had  only  a  superficial  know- 
ledge of  the  Christians  and  their  principles,  gained  entirely 
from  his  experience  in  Palestine  ;  and  the  circumstances  of 

*  Tacitus,  of  course,  called  them  su^erstitiones,  but  Sulpicius 
altered  the  term  to  religiones. 


XII.    Flavian  Policy  towards  the  Church.    255 

Palestinian  Christianity  quite  explain  his  idea  of  its  con- 
nexion with  the  Temple. 

Further/Titus  regarded  both  the  Jewish  and  the  Christian 
religions  as  evils  to  be  extirpated  ;  but  he  believed  that 
they  had  a  local  home  and  centre,  with  which  their  organisa- 
tion was  connected  and  on  which  they  were  dependent. 

The  hypothesis  is  inevitably  forced  on  us  that,  when 
Christianity  was  found  to  be  independent  of  a  centre 
at  Jerusalem,  and  to  flourish  unchecked  after  the  Temple 
was  destroyed,  the  enmity  that  underlies  the  speech 
of  Titus  would  be  carried  into  vigorous  action.  If  that 
were  not  so,  the  speech  of  Titus  loses  all  its  force  and 
appropriateness  ;  but,  if  our  hypothesis  as  to  the  subse- 
quent policy  is  correct,  his  speech  appears  as  a  fitting  and 
dramatic  introduction,  worthily  put  into  the  mouth  of 
the  conqueror  of  Jerusalem.  In  the  following  books 
Tacitus  would  show  how  the  emperors,  when  settled  in 
Rome,  and  masters  of  the  information  about  the  Christians 
contained  in  the  Imperial  archives  and  steadily  accumu- 
lating during  their  reign,  resumed  the  Neronian  vigour  of 
repression.* 


•  The  passage  in  which  Severus  describes  the  subsequent  de- 
velopment of  Nero's  policy  towards  the  Christians  has  been  quoted 
above  (p.  243)  ;  and  Bernays  has  taught  us  how  much  use  that 
chronicler  made  of  Tacitus.  Is  he  in  this  passage,  with  its  reference 
to  laws  and  edicts,  giving  his  own  general  impression  derived  from 
the  Histories  of  Tacitus  ?  It  is  possible  that  he  is ;  but  if  so,  we 
must  take  exception  to  the  words  edicts  and  laws.  We  must  hold 
that  Sulpicius  uses  these  terms  loosely  and  inaccurately ;  and 
perhaps  a  chronicler  of  the  fourth  century  was  quite  as  likely  to 
use  the  words  loosely,  as  we  have  found  some  modem  writers  to 
be,  even  while  they  aim  at  scrupulous  and  rigid  accuracy.  (See 
above,  p.  194.) 


256        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Mommsen  also  is  strongly  inclined  to  the  opinion  that 
the  account  of  the  council  of  war  which  Sulpicius  Severus 
gives  (flatly  contradicted  as  it  is  by  the  contemporary 
Jewish  historian  Josephus),  is  derived  from  Tacitus  ;  and  he 
unreservedly  adopts  the  view,  that  "  the  Jewish  insurrection 
had  too  clearly  brought  to  light  the  dangers  involved  in 
this  formation  of  a  national  religious  union — on  the  one 
hand  rigidly  concentrated,  on  the  other  spreading  over  the 
whole  East,  and  having  ramifications  even  in  the  West"* 

2.  Confirmation  of  Nero's  Policy  by  Vespasian. 

Our  hypothesis  is  that  this  development  took  place 
under  Vespasian,  after  some  years  of  his  reign  had  elapsed. 
But  the  brief  remainder  of  his  reign,  and  the  short  reign  of 
Titus,  did  not  impress  themselves  on  the  memory  of  the 
Christians.t  Hence  Domitian  alone  was  remembered  as  the 
persecutor,  ranking  along  with  Nero ;  and  the  execration 
and  condemnation,  which  were  deserved  by  his  personal 
character  and  conduct  in  other  respects,  have  been  ap- 
portioned to  him  in  the  popular  memory  of  Christian  times 
on  account  of  a  policy  to  which  he  was  only  the  heir.  His 
action  was  not  due  to  his  personal  idiosyncracies  ;  it  was 

*  Provinces,  ii.,  p.  216.  I  have  slightly  altered  the  printed  trans- 
lation. 

t  But  of  course  there  probably  were,  even  in  the  interval 
68-75  A.D.,  isolated  cases  of  accusation  and  trial,  and,  no  doubt, 
condemnation,  of  Christians.  The  reference  of  Hilary  to  a  persecu- 
tion under  Vespasian  is  only  a  slip  in  expression.  A  writer  of  the 
fourth  century,  who  enumerates  as  three  t)rpes  of  the  persecutor 
Nero,  Vespasian,  and  Decius,  must  not  be  quoted  as  a  witness  to 
a  persecution  under  Vespasian  (as  is  hesitatingly  done  by  Lightfoot, 
Ignat.  and  Pol.,  i.,  p.  15).  He  meant  Domitian,  who  was  the 
second  type. 


XII.  Flavian  Policy  towards  the  Church.      257 

the  natural  development  of  the  Imperial  policy,  and  the 
facts  and  reasons  on  which  it  was  founded  were  stored  in 
the  Imperial  archives,  and  were,  of  course,  consulted  by 
Trajan  before  he  replied  to  Pliny.  It  is  possible  that  a 
reference  to  Vespasian's  actions  occurs  in  a  mutilated 
passage  of  Suetonius,  where  it  is  said  that  "  never  in  the 
death  of  any  one  did  Vespasian  [take  pleasure,  and  in 
the  case  of]  merited  punishments  he  even  wept  and 
groaned,"*  The  words  in  brackets  are  restored  to  fill 
up  an  obvious  gap  in  the  text  of  the  MSS,  ;  but  this 
restoration  is  not  sufficient.  We  have  here  indubitably 
a  reference  to  some  class  or  individuals,  whose  punish- 
ment Vespasian  felt  himself  compelled  to  accept  while 
he  regretted  it ;  for  it  is  inconceivable  that  Vespasian, 
a  Roman,  a  soldier  of  long  experience  in  the  bloody 
wars  of  Britain  and  Judea,  wept  and  groaned  at  every 
"  merited  "  execution,  as  the  restored  text  would  imply. 
We  think  of  the  punishments  which  by  the  principle 
of  Nero  attached  to  the  Christians ;  we  saw  from  the 
way  in  which  Suetonius  mentioned  Nero's  measure  that 
he  considered  it  a  good  one  ;  he  uses  the  same  term 
siipplicia  in  both  places.  Does  not  the  second  passage 
{Vesp.  15)  look  back  to  the  ^rst  {Nero  16),  and  is  not 
Suetonius  here  continuing  in  his  own  way  the  same 
subject  ?  t     A  more  detailed  reference  did  not  enter  into  his 


•  Suetonius,  Vesp.,  15.  Neque  ccBde  cuiusqjiam  umqunm 
\l(r.tatus  est  et}  itistis  supph'cns  i?ilacrimavit  etiam  et  ingetnuit. 
Some  fill  the  gap  with  the  single  word  Iceiatus,  but  neque  at  the 
beginning  looks  forward  necessarily  to  t/ following. 

t  This  suggestion  is  so  obvious  that  I  have  no  doubt  it  has  been 
already  made. 

17 


258         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

plan.  The  principle  was  instituted  by  Nero.  It  continued 
permanently  ;  and  Suetonius  would,  according  to  his  usual 
practice,  not  again  allude  to  it,  were  it  not  for  the  detail, 
interesting  to  a  biographer,  that  Vespasian  wept  while  he 
confirmed  its  operation. 

What  form  did  the  confirmation  take?  As  yet  Nero's 
principle  was  merely  unwritten  law,  according  to  which  the 
governors,  when  any  case  came  before  them,  judged  it 
according  to  the  precedent  set  them  by  the  Emperor.  The 
punishment  of  Christians  was  administrative,  not  judicial. 
The  same  character  continues  to  attach  to  it  under  the 
Flavian  Emperors  and  under  Trajan  (see  p.  207).  Hence 
we  need  not  suppose  that  any  edict  or  law  was  passed ;  only 
rescripts  were  issued  to  inquiring  governors.  But  such 
repressive  measures  could  not  remain  in  the  form  which 
Nero  gave  them :  they  must  develop  to  their  logical  con- 
clusion ;  and  the  followers  of  a  sect,  whose  tendency  was  to 
unsettle  the  foundations  and  principles  of  Roman  society, 
were  held  as  outlaws,  and  the  very  name  treated  as  a  crime. 
Such  seems  the  natural  course  foreshadowed  in  the  speech 
which  the  great  historian  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Titus  ;  and 
such  is  the  state  of  administrative  procedure,  when  Pliny 
was  first  called  on  to  conduct  cognitiones  in  the  case  of 
Christians. 

If  the  theory  just  stated  be  not  accepted,  the  only 
possible  alternative  seems  to  be  that  under  Nero  the 
attitude  of  the  Roman  State  towards  the  Christians  was 
determined  finally.  We  have  rejected  this  alternative 
(see  p.  243),  for  Tacitus's  evidence  on  the  point  is  conclusive 
against  it,  though  the  weight  of  Suetonius'  evidence  is 
rather  in  its  favour. 


XII,  Flavian  Policy  towards  the  Church.      259 

3.    The  Persecution  of  Domitian. 

It  may  safely  be  asserted  that  it  is  only  the  date  of 
the  proscription  which  is  hypothetical ;  its  occurrence  at 
some  time  before  the  downfall  of  the  Flavian  dynasty  is 
certain.  The  persecution  of  Domitian  burned  itself 
ineradicably  into  the  memory  of  history ;  it  may  be 
doubted  by  the  critic,  but  not  by  the  historian.  He  that 
has  only  an  eye  for  details,  that  "sees  hairs  and  pores, 
examines  bit  by  bit,"  will  always  find  the  evidence 
defective  for  almost  every  detail  and  fact  of  the  per- 
secution.    But  the  historian  who  can  discern 

*'  How  parts  relate  to  parts,  or  they  to  whole, 
The  body's  harmony,  the  beaming  soul," 

can  never  feel  any  doubt  as  to  the  general  character  of 
Domitian's  action  towards  the  Christians,  and  will  always 
see  in  it  the  same  type  of  absolute  proscription  of  the 
Name,  which  was  taken  by  Pliny  and  Trajan  as  pre- 
determined. So  strong  and  early  a  tradition  as  that  which 
constitutes  Domitian  the  second  great  persecutor  cannot 
be  discredited  without  wrecking  the  foundations  of  ancient 
history.  Those  who  discredit  it  must,  to  be  consistent, 
resolve  to  dismiss  nine-tenths  of  what  appears  in  books 
as  ancient  history,  including  most  that  is  interesting  and 
valuable. 

It  is  urged  that  it  was  the  interest  of  the  Christians  to 
represent  the  two  worst  emperors,  Nero  and  Domitian,  as 
the  two  great  persecutors  ;  and  therefore  their  evidence  is 
dismissed  as  unworthy  of  credit.  Pliny  tortured  the  two 
Christian  deaconesses,  before  he  would  accept  their 
evidence ;   but   he   applied    the   same  process  to  heathen 


26o         The  CInirch  In  the  Roman  Emph-e. 

slaves.  To  be  consistent  let  us  apply  the  same  standard 
to  all  our  authorities ;  and  we  then  must  begin  with 
Thucydides,  who  had  the  strongest  motives  for  misrepre- 
senting the  Athenian  policy.  If  it  were  contended  that 
ancient  history  as  a  whole  is  uncertain  and  unknowable,  no 
reply  need  be  made  ;  but  the  same  measure  must  be  applied 
to  it  throughout ;  and  on  the  ordinary  standards  of  history, 
Domitian's  persecution  is  as  certain  as  that  of  Nero.* 

The  only  passage  in  which  any  pagan  writer  mentions 
punishments  inflicted  by  Domitian  for  religious  reasons, 
occurs  in  the  Epitome  of  the  history  of  Dion  Cassius,  made 
in  the  eleventh  century  by  the  monk  Xiphilin.  Dion 
mentioned  that  Flavius  Clemens,  consul  A.D.  95  and 
cousin  of  the  Emperor,  and  his  wife  Flavia  Domitilla, 
niece  of  the  Emperor,  were  tried  on  a  charge  of  sacrilege 
{a6e6rT]<i).\  Clemens  was  executed,  and  Domitilla  was 
banished.  A  great  many  others  were  put  to  death  or 
deprived  of  their   property   on   the   same   charge,  among 


•  Schiller  is  consistent  in  disbelieving'  the  evidence  for  both.  He 
considers  that  aBiOTxi^  and  da-ejieia  are  used  indifferently  in  this  period 
as  translations  of  the  Latin  impietas,  which  quite  explains  his  con- 
sistent scepticism.  If  we  take  from  the  words  of  the  ancient  his- 
torians only  such  vague  and  loose  ideas  as  a  schoolboy  gets  from 
his  lexicon,  we  cannot  find  much  evidence  in  them.  See  his  Gcsch. 
der  rom.  Kaiserzeit,  i.,  p,  537.  Neumann  (pp.  14  and  17)  points 
out  the  stricter  sense  in  which  these  Greek  terms  were  used. 

t  Neumann  (p.  17)  has  observed  that  this  is  the  technical  sense 
of  the  word  u^eor/^s.  We  might  at  first  expect  that  daejSeia  would 
be  the  rendering  of  the  Latin  sacrilegiurn  ;  but  it  was  pre-occupied 
as  the  translation  of  majestas.  The  word  UpoavKia,  which  was  in 
earlier  times  {e.g.,  Acts  xiic.  37)  used  to  represent  sacrilegmm,  was 
too  loose  a  rendering;  and  the  use  of  this  old  term  in  Acta  Pauh 
et  Theklae  (see  p.  401)  stamps  the  episode  in  which  it  occurs  as 
early. 


XII.  Flavian  Policy  towards  the  Church.      261 

them  being  Acilius  Glabrio,  consul  in  A.D.  91,  who  had 
after  his  consulship  been  sent  into  exile.  Dion  mentions 
that  the  persons  against  whom  this  charge  was  brought 
had  gone  astray  after  the  manners  of  the  Jews,  We  see, 
therefore,  that  a  number  of  Roman  citizens  had  changed 
their  religion,  and  that  the  charge  on  which  they  were  tried 
was  sacrilege. 

The  first  question  which  has  to  be  determined  is  what 
was  the  religion  which  these  Romans  had  adopted.  Was 
it  Judaism  or  Christianity,  or  did  some  adopt  one  religion, 
some  another  ? 

It  is  certain  that  Clemens  and  Domitilla  suffered  as 
Christians.  The  evidence  is  complete  and  conclusive,  and 
there  is  practical  agreement  on  almost  all  hands  among 
modern  writers  on  this  point.* 

The  question  as  to  Acilius  Glabrio's  religion  is  more 
difficult,  and  opinion  is  much  more  divided.  But  in  the 
account  given  by  Dion  it  is  difficult  to  separate  his  offence 


•  Domitilla' s  memory  as  a  martyr  wa^  preserved,  and  the  cata- 
comb on  the  Ardeatine  Way,  where  she  was  buried,  was  called 
afterwards  by  her  name.  It  is  known  from  inscriptions  that  the 
ground  in  which  this  catacomb  was  situated  belonged  to  her.  De 
Rossi's  discoveries  on  this  point  will  be  found  most  conveniently 
summarised  in  Lightfoot's  Clemeni,  i.,  p.  35  if.  Eusebius  mentions 
that  Domitilla  was  a  Christian  {H.  E.,  iii.  18,  and  Chron.,  pp. 
162-3,  anno  21 12).  Christian  tradition  speaks  of  both  Clemens 
and  Domitilla  as  Christian,  and  Syncellus,  p.  650  (Bonn  edition), 
records  this  (the  divergent  accounts  of  Domitilla's  relationship  are 
explained,  probably  rightly,  by  Lightfoot) ;  while  the  Christianity  of 
Clemens  is  not  so  well  attested  as  that  of  Domitilla,  there  is  at  least 
no  doubt  that  suspicions  of  this  contributed  to  cause  his  trial  and 
prompted  the  charges  on  which  he  was  condemned.  The  Acta 
Nerci  et  Achillei  also  attests  the  fact  of  their  religion.  On 
Suetonius'  view,  see  below,  p.  271. 


262         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

from  that  of  Clemens  and  the  others.*  Dion  reported  by 
Xiphilin  is  not  a  very  high  authority  ;  but,  so  far  as  his 
evidence  goes,  it  is  that  Acilius  belonged  to  the  same  class 
of  criminals  as  Clemens  and  others,t  and  that  they  were 
Christians.  Moreover,  when  we  read  of  De  Rossi's  recent 
excavations,  we  can  hardly  refuse  to  follow  Dion.  De 
Rossi  found  that  the  original  centre  of  a  group  of  cata- 
combs beside  the  Via  Salaria  consisted  of  a  gamma-shaped 
crypt  attached  to  a  small  chapel.  In  the  chapel  was  buried 
the  person  who  gave  sanctity  to  the  whole  group  of  cata- 
combs, and  near  whom  other  Christians  wished  to  repose.^ 
The  crypt  was  the  burial-place  of  the  family  on  whose 
property  the  chapel  and  the  series  of  catacombs  were 
situated,  and  to  which  apparently  the  person  buried  in 
the  chapel  belonged.  The  fragmentary  inscriptions  found 
here  hardly  leave  room  for  doubt  that  the  family  was  that 
of  the  Acilii  Glabriones.     Who   then  was   buried   in   the 

•  Lightfoot's  attempt  to  separate  them  seems  to  me  to  be  un- 
successful.    {Clem.,  i.,  p.  81,  n.  6.) 

+  An  additional  charge  was  brought  against  Acilius,  of  having 
fought  in  the  arena  during  his  consulship,  and  thus  (we  may  infer) 
injured  the  "  majesty  "  of  Rome.  He  was,  therefore,  accused  both 
of  sacrilege  and  treason. 

X  The  eager  desire  of  the  Christians  to  be  buried  near  the  grave 
of  some  saint  or  Ts\zxiyx:{satictis  martyribus  sociari)  is  a  well-known 
and  widely  prevalent  fact.  (See  Le  Blant,  Suppl.  aux  Actes  des 
Martyrs,  p.  272.)  In  this  case,  of  course,  there  is  no  certain  proof 
that  the  saint  or  martyr,  who  was  buried  in  the  chapel,  belonged  to 
the  family  which  owned  the  land.  Many  cases  occurred  where  a 
martyr's  body  was  bought  or  taken  by  Christians  not  of  his  kindred. 
Several  are  mentioned  in  extant  Acta.  (See  Le  Blant,  p.  282.) 
But  the  probability  is,  of  course,  strong  that  the  Acilii  obtained  the 
body  of  their  own  relative,  and  made  it  the  central  point  of  a  new 
family  sepulchre.  The  comparison  of  Dion  with  the  discoveries 
of  De  Rossi  makes  the  case  very  strong,  but  not  conclusive. 


XII.  Flavian  Policy  towards  the  Church.      263 

chapel  ?  Surely  we  may,  with  Dion,  connect  the  charge 
against  Acilius  with  that  against  Clemens  and  Domitilla, 
and  consider  that  the  body  of  the  consul  of  91  was 
brought  back  from  his  place  of  exile,  and  buried  in  Rome. 
It  was  the  regular  practice  to  leave  the  corpses  of  criminals 
free  to  their  friends  to  tend  and  bury. 

Those  persons  who  are  actually  named  by  Dion  as  having 
perished  on  the  charge  of  going  astray  after  Jewish  cus- 
toms prove  therefore  to  be  Christians.  Taking  his  words 
in  connection  with  the  persistent  tradition  about  Domitian's 
persecution,  we  cannot  doubt  that  in  A.D.  95  many  Roman 
citizens  were  put  to  death  on  suspicion  of  being  Christians, 
or  at  least  of  being  connected  with  Christians. 

4.  Bias  of  Dion  Cassius. 

In  the  next  place  we  have  to  face  the  question,  why 
then  does  Dion  speak  only  of  Jewish  manners  ?  This  fact 
ceases  to  present  any  serious  difficulty  when  we  observe 
that  he  seems  to  have  studiously  refrained  throughout  his 
history  from  referring  explicitly  to  the  Christians.* 

This  silence  is  obviously  intentional.  When  Dion  wrote  in 
the  third  century,  the  Christians  were  of  course  perfectly 
well  known  ;  and  there  were  many  occasions  on  which  an 
unbiassed  historian  must  have  alluded  to  them.  Whether 
Dion  approved  or  disapproved  of  them,  it  was  undeniable 

•  The  name  occurs  three  times  in  Xiphilin's  epitome,  but  in  each 
case  he  is  plainly  supplementing  Dion  from  other  authorities.  It 
may  be  taken  as  certain  that  Xiphilin  would  not  omit  any  reference 
to  the  Christians  that  occurred  in  Dion.  He  found  none,  but 
introduces  references  from  other  sources  where  he  felt  bound  to 
complete  Dion.  The  evidence  deduced  from  Zonaras,  who  also 
used  Dion,  confirms  this  conclusion. 


264         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

that  they  had  been  a  factor  of  some  consequence  in  the  State 
from  the  time  of  Nero  onwards.  His  silence  may  be  com- 
pared with  the  peculiar  language  of -^lius  Aristides,  who  also 
makes  a  point  of  not  naming  the  Christians,  though  he 
mentions  "  them  in  Palestine,"  in  a  passage  where  I  cannot 
doubt  that  the  Christians  are  at  least  included  in  the  general 
description.*  It  was  apparently  a  fashion  and  an  affectation 
among  a  certain  class  of  Greek  men  of  letters  about  160-240 
to  ignore  the  existence  of  the  Christians,  and  to  pretend  to 
confuse  them  with  the  Jews.  These  high-souled  philosophic 
Greeks  would  not  even  know  the  name,  for  it  was  a  solecism 
to  use  such  a  vulgar  and  barbarian  word  as  Xpia-rcavo';. 

We  conclude  then  that  Dion  was  biassed,  and  that  his 
attitude  as  an  historian  has  a  certain  leaning  which  we 
must  always  make  allowance  for  in  estimating  his  testi- 
mony. In  regard  to  the  events  of  A.D.  95,  we  see  that 
it  would  be  quite  in  his  style  to  describe  the  crime  of 
Christians  by  the  vague  phrase  "  manners  of  the  Jews  "  ; 
and  we  therefore  can  find  in  his  words  no  serious  discrepancy 
with  the  inference  which  has  been  drawn  from  the  individual 
cases  mentioned  by  him. 

5.  Difference  of  Policy  towards  Jews  and 
Christians. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  we  take  Dion's  phrase  to  imply 
that  he  considered  Clemens,  Acilius,  and  many  others  to 
have  been  put  to  death  for  becoming  Jewish  proselytes,  we 
are  involved  in  insuperable  difficulties,  and  must  reject  his 
evidence  as  wholly  incredible.     It  is  in  itself  improbable  that 

*  Or.f  xlvi.  irpbs  nXarcoj/a  vnep  Tav  TeTrdpav,  vol.  ii.,  p.  394  ff.  (ed. 
Dindorf).  This  much-controverted  passage  is  discussed  more  fully 
below,  p.  351  ff. 


XII.  Flavian  Policy  towards  the  Chttrck.      265 

many  Romans  had  become  Jewish  proselytes;  and  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  account  for  the  entire  failure  of  corroborative  evidence. 
A  disposition  among  some  classes  of  Romans  to  coquet  with 
Jewish  habits  is  indeed  attested  ;  but  it  was  not  carried  to 
a  degree  which  would  render  Dion's  account  probable. 

It  is  true  that  under  Domitian  the  Jews  suffered  much 
extortionate  and  harsh  treatment.  The  Jewish  poll-tax, 
which  since  the  Jewish  war,  67-70  A.D.,  had  been  levied  for 
the  benefit  of  Capitoline  Jupiter,  was  exacted  with  great 
severity.  Proselytes,  who  strictly  were  not  liable,  and 
persons  of  Jewish  origin,  who  had  given  up  their  faith,* 
are  said  to  have  been  compelled  to  pay.  The  exaction 
was  accompanied  with  much  hardship,  with  insult,  and  even 
with  violence  to  the  person  of  suspects.f  But  the  object 
was  to  enrich  the  treasury ;  for  after  the  enormous  ex- 
travagance of  Nero,  finance  became  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant concerns  of  the  Imperial  policy.  Hence  it  was 
that  the  poll-tax  was  levied  from  as  many  as  possible  ;  but 
for  this  very  reason  there  appears  to  have  been  no  slaying 
of  Jews.  Finance  and  not  religion  dictated  the  action 
towards  them ;  and  potential  taxpayers  would  not  be 
slain  by  a  needy  government,  except  in  rare  cases  as  a 
warning  to  others  to  pay  more  readily.J 

•  The  whole  history  of  the  Jewish  race  precludes  us  from  the 
supposition  that  these  Jews  had  apostatised  to  paganism.  They 
can  have  been  only  Jewish  Christians. 

t  The  extreme  violence  which  was  applied  to  reluctant  taxpayers 
is  described  by  M.  Le  Blant  in  his  Acies  des  Martyrs,  p.  162  flf. 

X  See  the  passage  quoted  in  preceding  note.  Schiller,  i.,  p.  537, 
on  the  contrary,  considers  that  the  intention  was  to  weaken  the 
numbers  and  power  of  the  Jews  :  Dass  die  Regierung  durch 
Er  ho  hung  und  strenge  Beitrcibung  der  Judensteuer  in  Rom  selbst 
die  Judeti  zu  decimieren  und  zu  controllieren  suchte. 


266         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Finally,  another  alternative  remains  for  consideration — 
viz.,  that  Christians  and  Jews  were  in  A.D.  95  still  confused 
with  each  other  by  the  Romans,  and  that  Dion  (who  of 
coiirse  was  well  aware  of  the  difference  between  them) 
merely  retained  the  phrase  employed  by  his  authorities. 
In  that  case  the  whole  view  which  we  have  taken  as  to 
the  attitude  of  the  State  towards  the  Christians  during 
the  first  century  is  shown  to  be  erroneous.  Many  high 
authorities  have  maintained  that  the  Imperial  Government 
continued  till  the  time  of  Pliny  and  Trajan  to  consider 
Christians  as  a  mere  sect  of  the  Jews,  to  speak  about  both 
as  Jews,  and  to  treat  both  in  the  same  way.  Neumann 
has  correctly  observed  that  this  view  is  inconsistent  with 
the  spirit  of  Pliny's  and  Trajan's  letters  ;  but  he  only  moves 
back  a  few  years  the  discovery  of  the  Christians  by  the 
Government.  He  thinks  it  certain  that  the  Christians  were 
reckoned  by  the  Roman  Government  to  be  a  mere  sect  of 
the  Jews  down  to  the  reign  of  Domitian  ;  or  even  if  their 
existence  was  known,  the  same  regulations  applied  to  them 
as  to  the  Jews.*  The  question  as  to  the  attitude  of  the 
Government  towards  the  Christians  had  not  yet  been  raised. 
Hitherto,  indeed,  the  Christians  had  been  affected  along 
with  the  Jews  by  occasional  measures  directed  against  the 
latter  ;  but  on  the  whole  they  lived  in  freedom,  protected 
by  the  screen  of  the  legalised  Jewish  religion.  Even  under 
Domitian,  Neumann  considers  that  for  a  time  the  Christians 
were  still  classed  among  the  Jews,  and  compelled  to  pay 
the  Jewish  poll-tax,  and  that  the  strict  exaction  of  the  tax 
revealed  to  the  Government  the  extent  to  which  Christianity 
had  spread.     In  the  last  year  but  one  of  Domitian's  reign  it 

•  Neumann,  p.  5  ff.,  p.  14  ff. 


XII.  Flavian  Policy  towards  the  Church.      267 

was  decided  that  the  propagation  of  the  Jewish-Christian 
religion  should  be  restrained  by  the  law.  The  Jews,  on  the 
other  hand,  were  still  tolerated,  but  Jewish  proselytising 
was  forbidden. 

We  cannot  admit  that  the  Roman  Government  did  not 
begin  until  A.D.  95  to  understand  that  Christians  were  not 
a  mere  sect  of  the  Jews,  and  to  consider  what  should  be  its 
policy  towards  the  former.  The  following  reasons  seem 
conclusive  against  Neumann's  view. 

(i)  The  nature  of  the  Imperial  Government,  the  ability 
with  which  it  was  conducted,  the  success  which  it  attained 
in  Romanising  the  provinces,  are  inconsistent  with  the 
supposition  that  it  continued  until  A.D.  95  so  ignorant  about 
the  Christians.  The  remarkable  success  of  their  provincial 
administration  could  not  have  been  achieved  without  in- 
timate knowledge  of  the  provincial  peoples  and  manners. 
The  correspondence  of  Pliny  shows  how  carefully  the 
ways  of  the  people  were  reported  to  the  Emperor  ;  and 
all  such  information  was  certainly  collected  and  preserved 
in  the  Imperial  archives.  It  seems  almost  as  absurd  to  say 
that  the  Imperial  policy  treated  Christians  until  95  under 
the  mistaken  idea  that  they  were  Jews,  as  it  would  be  for 
some  historian  of  future  ages  to  argue  that  the  British 
Government  continued  until  the  twentieth  century  to  mix 
up  the  Brahmo  Somaj  with  Brahminism.  This  d  priori 
argument,  however,  must  yield  if  evidence  is  against  it. 
What  then  is  the  evidence  ? 

(2)  The  evidence  of  the  historians,  where  accessible,  is  that 
Christians  were  distinguished  by  the  Government  and  the 
populace  as  early  as  A.D.  64.  Tacitus  and  Suetonius  are 
agreed  on  this  point.  Again  we  saw  that  in  A.D.  70 
(according  to  Tacitus  probably)    Titus  was  familiar  with 


268         TJie  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

the  distinction.  Before  79  an  idle  person  could  write  on  a 
Pompeian  wall  the  name  of  the  Christians.  The  facts 
indeed  are  few,  but  all  (with  the  one  exception  of  Dion's 
phrase)  are  on  one  side.  On  the  other  side  there  is  mere 
theory,  supported  by  Dion's  words. 

(3)  The  treatment  of  the  Jews  was  quite  different  from 
that  which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  employed  towards  the 
Christians.  The  Jewish  religion  had  always  been  recognised 
as  legal  by  the  Imperial  policy  ;  and  the  Jews  were  released 
from  all  duties  which  were  contrary  to  their  religion.  Even 
the  great  rebellion,  A.D.  67-70,  entailed  no  essential  change. 
The  religion  continued  to  be  legal,  and  no  Jew  was  required 
to  do  anything  contrary  to  it  (p.  355).  It  is  true  that  the 
old  temple-tax  was  now  levied  as  tribute  to  the  temple 
of  Capitoline  Jupiter  ;  and  this  exaction  gave  rise  to  heart- 
burning among  the  Jews  and  harsh  usage  at  the  hands  of 
the  collectors.  But,  when  once  the  tax  was  paid,  the  Jew 
was  free  to  worship  as  he  pleased.  Harsh  taxation  was  not 
inconsistent  with  religious  toleration.     (See  p.  265.) 

6.  The  Executions  of  a.d.  95  an  Incident  of  the 
General  Policy. 

While  we  have  to  differ  from  Neumann  on  this  point,  we 
find  him  in  other  respects  quite  agreed  with  the  view  which 
we  have  taken  as  to  the  executions  of  A.D.  95.  They  were 
the  result  of  action  by  the  State  against  the  Christians  on 
the  ground  of  their  religion.  We  cannot,  however,  consider 
that  these  executions  are  by  themselves  sufficient  to 
explain  the  persistent  tradition  which  makes  Domitian  the 
second  great  persecutor,  or  to  account  for  the  facts  which 
will  be  further  described  in  the  following  chapter. 


XII .  Flavian  Policy  tozvards  the  Chtirch.      269 

The  execution  and  banishment  of  Christians  in  A.D.  95, 
so  far  as  the  record  in  Dion  goes,  would  appear  to  have 
been  confined  to  Roman  citizens.  The  obvious  explanation 
of  this  is  that  mere  execution  of  ordinary  Christians  was 
not  mentioned  by  Dion  any  more  than  he  would  mention 
the  execution  of  so  many  thieves.  The  attitude  of  the 
State  towards  the  Christians  during  the  Flavian  period 
cannot  be  better  described  than  in  the  words  of  Mommsen  : 
"  The  persecution  of  the  Christians  was  a  standing  matter, 
as  was  that  of  robbers."  *  It  was  inherent  in  the  nature  of 
the  Imperial  constitution  that  it  should  stamp  out  Christi- 
anity, just  as  it  was  inherent  in  its  nature  that  it  should 
stamp  out  brigandage.  The  desultory  and  fitful  nature  of 
the  persecutions  arose  naturally  from  the  situation.  The 
repression  of  brigandage  was  as  uncertain  as  the  repression 
of  Christianity.  Both  were  permanent  evils  ;  and  some 
governors  made  more  or  less  energetic  attempts  to  carry  out 
completely  the  fundamental  principle  which  proscribed  both, 
while  others  made  little  or  no  attempt  to  cope  with  either. 
Many  governors  boasted,  or  were  anxious  to  boast,  that 
they  had  brought  back  from  their  province  their  lictors' 
axes  unstained  with  blood,  f  Under  their  rule  little  can 
have  been  done  to  punish  either  Christians  or  brigands. 
The  Imperial  system  was  inconsistent  with  the  Christian 
principles  of  life  and  society  ;  collision  between  them  was 
inevitable.  The  actual  moment  when  the  collision  first 
took  place  was  due  to  accident — viz.,  to  the  position  of  Nero 
in  regard  to  the  popular  feeling  in  A.D.  64  ;  but  sooner  or 
later  it  had  to  take  place.     Other  circumstances  determined 

•  Provinces  of  the  Roman  Empire,  ii.,  p.  199,  of  the  translation, 
t  See  Le  Blant,  Actes  des  Martyrs,  p.  127. 


270        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

the  precise  year  of  the  coUision,  but  the  nature  of  the  two 
powers  determined  its  necessity. 

Dion  then  would  have  defended  his  silence  about  the 
Christians  in  general  on  the  ground  that  they  were  as  far 
beneath  the  notice  of  history  as  were  thieves  and  other 
malefactors.  Only  when  Roman  citizens  were  involved 
did  it  enter  into  his  plan  to  allude  to  the  proceedings. 
But  much  may  be  gathered  from  what  he  does  record  ;  and 
we  may  fairly  ask  what  would  be  done  to  non-Romans,  if 
noble  citizens,  consuls  and  relatives  of  the  Emperor,  were 
put  to  death  on  the  charge  of  being  Christians  ?  A  formal 
trial  must  be  granted  to  all  Romans,  in  which  the  exact 
accusation  was  plainly  stated,  and  the  character  and  degree 
of  the  crime  considered  in  the  sentence ;  but  that  gives  no 
reason  for  thinking  that  a  similar  careful  trial  would  be 
accorded  to  non-Romans.  In  their  case  the  magistrate 
simply  made  the  investigation  necessary  for  attaining 
certainty  about  the  facts,  and  forthwith  exercised  on  the 
parties  the  powers  that  belonged  to  him  as  the  guardian  of 
law  and  order.  The  charge  against  these  Romans  in  A.D. 
95  was  sacrilege.  Now  Mommsen  has  shown  conclusively 
that  there  was  no  regular  process  in  Roman  law  for  trying 
such  a  crime ;  and  the  trial  therefore  could  not  be  before 
an  ordinary  qucBStio.  A  special  procedure  was  required, 
and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  was  of  the  following- 
character  :  the  Emperor  judged  at  least  the  case  of  his  own 
relatives,  and  as  the  ultimate  source  and  arbiter  of  right 
he  pronounced  the  fitting  decision,  or  as  the  supreme 
magistrate  he  took  what  steps  he  thought  right  to  vindicate 
propriety  and  order.  But  no  allusion  seems  to  have  been 
made  to  crimes  connected  with,  or  springing  out  of,  Christi- 
anity ;  the  trials  were  directly  concerned  with  the  religion 


XII.  Flavian  Policy  towards  the  Church.      2yi 


of  the  accused  ;  and  the  fact  that  Romans  had  become 
Christians  was  reckoned  as  sacrilege  and  punished  with 
death.  This  decision  of  the  supreme  fountain  of  law  and 
right  must,  when  applied  by  magistrates  to  the  case  of 
non-Romans,  have  taken  the  form  according  to  which  Pliny 
in  his  first  cog7iitiones  acted,  and  which  he  understood  to  be 
already  settled. 

We  need  not  consider  that  the  trials  of  A.D.  95  were  the 
first  that  Domitian  (or  his  delegates)  held.  The  only 
reason  why  we  hear  of  them  is  that  persons  of  such  high 
rank  were  implicated. 

7.  Evidence  of  Suetonius  about  the  Executions 
OF  A.D.  95. 

Suetonius  also  mentions  the  execution  of  Flavius 
Clemens  and  Acilius  Glabrio.  His  references,  though 
disappointingly  brief,  are  sufficient  to  show  that  the 
account  given  in  Xiphilin's  Epitome  of  Dion  is  neither 
complete  nor  entirely  trustworthy.  Suetonius  evidently 
considered  that  the  reason  for  the  execution  of  both  lay 
in  Domitian's  dread  of  conspiracy  and  treason.  We  have 
seen,  even  in  Xiphilin's  bald  version,  that  Acilius  must  have 
been  accused  of  treason  as  well  as  sacrilege  ;  and  Suetonius 
declares  that  he  was  put  to  death  on  a  charge  of  fomenting 
disturbance  or  revolution.*  About  Clemens  he  only  says 
that  Domitian  suddenly,  on  a  very  light  suspicion,  put  him 
to  death ;  but  the  context  shows  beyond  a  doubt  that  the 
suspicion   was   that  Clemens  was  plotting.     What  is   the 

•  Quasi  molitores  rerum  novarum.  The  word  quasi,  in  a 
writer  of  Suetonius'  period,  does  not  imply  a  false  appearance,  but 
a  real  ground  of  accusation. 


272         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

relation  between  this  charge  of  treason  and  conspiracy,  as 
related  by  Suetonius,  and  the  charge  of  sacrilege,  which 
Dion  (as  represented  by  Xiphilin)  considered  to  be  the 
chief  part  of  the  accusation  ?  Are  the  two  accounts  flatly 
contradictory,  or  do  they  present  two  different  aspects  of 
the  same  fact?  We  have  seen  that  the  two  accounts  of 
Nero's  persecution,  by  Tacitus  and  by  Suetonius,  complete 
each  other ;  and  we  shall  find  that  the  same  is  the  case 
with  the  different  accounts  of  Dion  and  Suetonius. 

Throughout  the  first  century,  one  of  the  chief  motives  in 
the  policy  of  the  emperors  within  the  city  was  dread  of  con- 
spiracy among  the  Roman  nobles  in  favour  of  a  rival.  Under 
the  Flavian  dynasty  it  was  especially  among  the  philoso- 
phers, and  those  nobles  whose  tastes  lay  in  that  direction, 
that  conspiracy  was  feared.  The  philosophic  temperament 
was  connected  with  preservation  of  the  memory  of  the  old 
Roman  republic,  and  with  thoughts  of  freedom  and  un- 
willingness to  submit  to  despotism.  Even  interest  in  past 
history  was  considered  a  dangerous  symptom,  and  Tacitus 
is  said  to  have  felt  it  unsafe  to  write  while  Domitian  lived. 
This  policy  was  carried  to  an  extreme  by  Domitian,  who 
expelled  the  teachers  of  philosophy  from  Rome  about  A.D. 
93,  and  put  to  death  many  of  the  Romans  who  had  shown 
philosophic  interests ;  but  it  did  not  originate  in  mere 
capricious  tyranny.  It  was  the  permanent  Flavian  policy, 
and  an  example  of  its  effect  appeared  in  the  execution  of 
Helvidius  Priscus  by  Vespasian. 

Now  there  is  great  probability  that,  in  the  middle  and 
end  of  the  first  century,  many  of  the  philosophic  class 
among  the  Roman  nobles  took  an  interest  in  the  specula- 
tions and  doctrines  of  Jews  and  Christians  and  of  the  East 
in  general.      That  Seneca  had  some  slight   acquaintance 


XII.    Flavian  Policy  towards  the  Church.     273 


with  Christian  teaching  appears  to  be  plain  from  his 
writings,  though  it  would  be  as  absurd  to  say  that  he  ever 
had  any  inclination  towards  Christianity  as  it  would  be  to 
say  that  the  extant  correspondence  of  Paul  and  Seneca  is 
genuine.  So  long  as  philosophy  retained  its  spirit  of 
opposition  to  the  Government,  and  asserted  the  right  of  the 
individual  against  absolute  despotism,  it  had  a  certain 
aflfinity  with  the  position  of  Christianity  in  the  Empire. 
Hence  it  came  about  that  an  inclination  towards  the 
doctrines  of  Christianity  was  a  mark  of  the  class  which 
Domitian  most  dreaded,  and  an  interest  in  foreign  religions 
became  a  point  in  the  accusations  brought  against  many 
Roman  nobles  whose  attitude  had  roused  his  suspicion. 
To  Suetonius  the  important  point  in  these  trials  was  the 
general  fact  of  suspected  conspiracy,  whereas  in  Xiphilin's 
version  one  isolated  detail,  referring  to  religion  (in  which 
the  monk  was  interested),  is  mentioned  alone.  But  even 
in  Xiphilin  we  see  that  treason  (the  crime  of  injuring 
the  majestas  of  the  State)  must  have  been  included  in 
the  charge  against  Acilius ;  and  at  an  earlier  point  in 
his  Epitome  he  made  it  clear  that  the  exile  into  which 
Acilius  had  been  sent  several  years  before  was  due  to 
that  cause  exclusively.  Domitian's  suspicions  were  roused 
by  certain  omens  which  had  happened  to  Acilius  during 
his  consulship,  A.D.  91.* 

These  considerations  explain  Suetonius'  phrase  about 
the  death  of  Flavius  Clemens.  The  groundless  suspicion 
on  which  he  was  executed    was  of  conspiracy ;   and  the 

•  It  is  true  that  the  same  prodigies  happened  to  his  colleague  in 
the  consulship,  Trajan,  who  was  not  banished ;  but  we  have  too  little 
information  to  enable  us  to  understand  why  "  one  should  be  taken 
and  the  other  left." 


274         '^^'-^  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

"  utterly  contemptible  indolence,"  which  according  to 
Suetonius  characterised  him,  would  appear  to  the  historian 
a  sufficient  disproof  of  the  suspicion. 

But  it  must  be  admitted  that  Suetonius'  words  are  not 
consistent  with  the  idea  that  he  was  aware  of  Clemens 
being  a  Christian.  We  must  then  conclude  that  Clemens 
had  been  able  to  preserve  the  secret  of  his  religion,  and 
that  Suetonius  did  not  think  it  had  been  proved ;  *  and 
Lightfoot  is  in  all  probability  correct  in  saying  that  the 
"  indolence  "  of  Clemens  was  "  the  result  of  his  equivocal 
position."  By  avoiding  public  duties  to  the  utmost,  he 
escaped  showing  his  reluctance  to  comply  with  the  pagan 
ceremonies  constantly  required  of  public  officials,  and 
thus  incurred  the  charge  of  indolence. 

8.  The  Flavian  Action  was  Political  in 
Character. 
The  comparison  of  the  scanty  records,  then,  points  to  the 
view  that  the  real  motive  of  the  Flavian  policy  towards  the 
Christian  was  political,  and  not  religious.  The  Christians 
were  a  politically  dangerous  body ;  and,  if  that  be  so,  the 
danger  must  have  lain  espec  ally  in  the  fact  that  they  were 
an  organised  and  united  body.  It  is  therefore  inaccurate 
to  speak  of  the  Flavian  action  as  directed  against  the 
Christians.  That  phrase  might  be  used  about  Nero,  but  the 
Flavian  action  was,  if  we  can  trust  our  inferences  from  the 


*  Probably  Dion  also  did  not  believe  that  the  charges  brought 
by  Domitian  against  Clemens,  Acilius,  and  others  had  been  proved. 
They  profited  in  the  eyes  of  the  later  Romans  by  the  general  belief 
that  Domitian's  action  had  been  that  of  a  jealous  and  groundlessly 
suspicious  tyrant. 


XII.   Flavian  Policy  towards  the  Church.     275 

authorities,  directed  against  the  Church  as  an  organised 
unity.* 

One  of  the  marked  features  of  the  reign  of  Domitian  is 
the  attention  which  he  devoted  to  the  restoration  of  the 
national  cultus.f  In  this  respect  his  policy  was  the  same 
as  that  of  Augustus ;  and,  like  him,  he  looked  on  the 
Imperial  cultus  as  part  of  the  national  religion.  He 
himself  delighted  to  be  identified  with  Jupiter,  and  to  be 
idolised  as  the  Divine  Providence  in  human  form ;  and  it 
is  recorded  that  Caligula,  Domitian,  and  Diocletian  were 
the  three  emperors  who  delighted  to  be  styled  dominus  et 
deus.  Though  a  certain  element  of  individual  caprice  is 
discernible  in  the  extent  to  which  Domitian  pushed  the 
personal  reference,  yet  the  policy  is  not  peculiar  to  him, 
but  was  a  fixed  and  highly  important  part  of  the  general 
Imperial  policy,  which  treated  religion  as  a  part  of  the 
machinery  of  government.  In  this  point  of  view,  refusal 
to  comply  with  the  prescribed  forms  of  respect  to  the 
Emperor  was  a  refusal  to  be  a  member  of  the  Roman  unity, 
and  constituted  disloyalty  and  treason.  As  we  have 
already  seen,  Pliny  found  the  procedure  already  established 
that  a  charge  of  Christianity  should  be  tested  by  calling  on 
the  accused  to  perform  the  ceremonies  of  loyal  service  and 
worship  to  the  Emperor.  Christianity  was  disloyalty;  and, 
conversely,  the  mere  rendering  of  the  duties  of  loyalty 
disproved  Christianity. 

The  scanty  evidence  which  we  have  found,  therefore, 
seems  to  point  to  the  view  that  Christianity  was,  under 
Domitian,  treated  as  treasonable.      This   implies  that  the 

•  This  point  is  of  the  utmost  importance  in  our  subject,  and  will 
engage  further  attention  in  Chapter  XV. 
t  See  Schiller,  Geschichte,  i.,  p.  536. 


276         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

trials  now  assumed  a  new  form.  Individual  Christians 
were  no  longer  proved  guilty  of  acts  which  showed  hostility 
to  the  existing  system  of  society  ;  but  the  whole  principles 
and  constitution  of  the  sect  were  condemned  as  hostile  to 
the  established  order,  and  mere  membership  of  the  sect,  if 
persisted  in,  was  reckoned  as  treasonable.  The  Christians, 
as  a  body  were  outlaws,  and  were  treated  as  such  as  soon 
as  their  adherence  to  the  sect  was  recognised ;  and  the  trial 
was  conducted  only  with  the  view  of  establishing  the  fact 
that  the  accused  persons  were  Christians.  Such  was  the 
cognitio  which  Pliny  applied  as  a  regular  process  to  the  first 
cases  that  were  brought  before  him. 

We  have  not  found  the  slightest  reference  to  this  aspect 
of  the  case  against  the  Christians  in  the  case  of  Nero's 
action  ;  *  and  we  can  hardly  suppose  that,  if  the  action  had 
assumed  that  character,  Tacitus  would  have  given  the 
account  which  we  read  in  Annals,  xv.  44.  Alike  as 
historian  and  as  proconsul  of  Asia,  he  must  have  been 
aware  of  the  later  character  of  procedure  against  the 
Christians ;  and,  if  he  so  pointedly  describes  Nero's  action 
as  being  of  a  different  character,  we  must  infer  that  he 
had  found  good  reason  to  consider  that  the  procedure  with 
which  he  was  familiar  had  been  developed  and  systematised 
at  a  later  time.  Suetonius,  on  the  other  hand,  in  his  brief 
allusion,  lays  stress  only  on  the  fact  that  the  permanent 


*  It  is  true  also  that  we  have  as  yet  no  complete  proof  that  under 
Domitian  procedure  against  the  Christians  had  assumed  this  aspect ; 
but  we  have  no  detailed  account  in  the  latter  case,  as  we  have  in 
regard  to  Nero,  and  the  evidence  does  show  that  some  reference  to 
religion  was  made  by  Domitian.  The  Christian  authorities  quoted 
in  the  following  chapter  prove  that  his  action  had  assumed  fully  the 
character  which  we  find  in  Pliny. 


XII.    Flavian  Policy  towards  the  Church.     277 

principle  of  condemning  Christians  originated  under  Nero, 
and  does  not  count  it  part  of  his  duty  as  a  biographer 
to  recount  the  development  which  the  principle  underwent. 
It  is  obvious  how  widely  the  view  here  taken  of  a 
practically  continuous  proscription  of  the  Christians  from 
64  onwards  differs  from  that  which  is  ordinarily  accepted — 
viz.,  that  there  were  two  isolated  persecutions,  one  by  Nero 
in  64,  and  the  other  by  Domitian  in  95.  How  then  is  it 
that  the  Christians  are  silent  about  this  continuous  perse- 
cution ?  No  names  of  martyrs  arc  preserved,*  no  facts  are 
recorded  which  have  not  been  attributed  to  one  or  other  of 
these  two  individual  outbursts  of  fury.  There  is  a  Christian 
literature  ;  there  are  Christian  historians.  Are  their  silence 
and  their  record  not  conclusive?  Partly,  I  think,  their 
silence  is  not  conclusive,  partly,  I  think,  their  evidence  has 
been  misinterpreted.  Their  silence  is  not  conclusive,  be- 
cause the  thoughts  of  the  first  century  Christians  were  so 
absorbed  in  life,  in  teaching,  in  the  imminent  end  of  the 
world,  that  memory  and  history  had  small  place  with  them. 
The  moment,  as  it  passed,  sank  out  of  sight  and  out  of  mind, 
in  contemplation  of  the  pressing  future.  Hence  there  sur- 
vived in  recollection  only  a  few  isolated  facts  about  a  very 
few  of  the  greatest  figures  in  their  history  ;  and  these  sur- 
vived only  in  vague  and  dubious  tradition.  When  history 
began  for  the  Christians  late  in  the  second  century,  hardly 
any  historical  authorities  later  than  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 

*  The  single  exception  is  St.  Paul,  whose  death  is,  by  Lightfoot 
and  others,  dated  about  67.  If  this  date  is  right,  the  event  proves 
the  continuance  of  the  principle  after  Nero's  personal  direction  was 
withdrawn.  Nero  was  in  Corinth  on  November  28th,  67,  as  we 
know  from  an  inscription  published  by  M.  Holleaux,  Discours 
prononci ;par  Neron,  Lyon,  1889,  p.  13  ;  see  above,  p.  243f. 


278        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

remained,  and  the  events  of  Christian  history  during  a  long 
period  after  A.D.  62  had  perished  from  memory.  So  far 
from  exaggerating,  the  Christian  historians  give  a  very 
defective  account  of  the  sufferings  of  that  period.  From 
the  silence,  therefore,  of  the  authorities,  no  argument  against 
the  view  here  advanced  can  be  drawn. 

But  we  have  a  few  contemporary  Christian  documents, 
which  are  indeed  not  of  the  type  of  formal  history,  but 
which,  being  written  by  persons  absorbed  in  the  practical 
problems  of  life,  as  we  have  supposed  the  Christians  to  be, 
throw  some  light  on  that  life.  Persons  whom  we  have 
assumed  to  be  living  a  life  so  real  could  not  compose 
abstract,  philosophical,  or  moral,  or  even  religious  treatises. 
There  must  beat  in  their  work  the  pulse  of  actual  life. 
Here  we  have  an  infallible  test  of  genuineness.  The  period 
was  unique  in  its  character,  and  unsurpassed  in  the  violence 
of  contending  emotions  ;  the  writers  were  men  of  affairs, 
living  in  deadly  earnest ;  the  resulting  literature  must  bear 
the  stamp  of  the  period,  and  must  prove  or  disprove  the 
view  here  advanced  of  the  war  between  the  Church  and  the 
Empire. 


Note. — The  phrases  used  in  the  text — "  resumption  of  the  Nero- 
nian  policy  by  Vespasian,"  and  "continuity  of  persecution  after 
Nero" — are  not  mutually  contradictory.  Nero's  precedent  guided 
provincial  governors  in  cases  that  were  brought  before  them,  until, 
in  some  way  unknown  to  us,  the  question  was  again  raised  and 
decided  by  Vespasian  in  a  more  developed  way.  Similarly,  it  was 
again  raised  by  Pliny  for  Trajan's  consideration,  and  by  Licinius 
Silvanus  Granianus  for  Hadrian's. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

CHRISTIAN  AUTHORITIES  FOR   THE  FLAVIAN  PERIOD. 

THE  scanty  indications  which  can  be  gathered  from 
Pagan  authorities,  and  from  the  few  facts  established 
by  evidence  independent  of  the  contemporary  Christian 
writers,  are  not  sufficient  to  prove,  though  they  certainly  point 
the  way  to,  the  view  which  we  have  taken  of  the  policy  of  the 
Flavian  Emperors  towards  the  Church.  Thq  real  proof  of 
that  view  lies  in  the  indications  of  the  feeling  which  was 
roused  in  the  minds  of  the  Christians  by  the  Flavian 
action — a  feeling  so  intense  as  to  be  almost  without 
parallel  in  history. 

I.  The  First  Epistle  of  Peter. 

If  the  view,  which  will  be  stated  about  i  Peter,  be  found 
even  approximately  correct,  it  will  afford  a  very  strong, 
almost  a  conclusive,  proof  of  the  general  accuracy  of  our 
theory  on  the  relations  of  the  State  to  the  Church.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  extreme  views — that  i  Peter  belongs  to  a 
very  early  date,  about  A.D.  40-64,  or  to  a  very  late  date 
under  Trajan— are  absolutely  inconsistent  with  our  theory  ; 
while  the  view  that  i  Peter  was  written  between  64  and  6"] 
would  involve  a  modification  of  our  theory,  and  an  admission 
of  the  view  which  we  have  deliberately  rejected  (see  p.  242), 
that  the  development  from  the  condemnation  of  Christians 

879 


28o         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

for  definite  crimes,'to  the  absolute  proscription  of  the  Name, 
took  place  before  the  conclusion  of  Nero's  reign. 

It  is  not  easy  to  state,  in  precise  and  brief  terms,  the  view 
which  is  here  taken  of  i  Peter.  There  is  great  danger  of 
over-emphasising  one  aspect,  and  omitting  others  entirely. 
I  must  therefore  beg  for  indulgence,  while  I  state  once  for 
all,  that  in  this  chapter  our  concern  is  with  only  one  side  of 
a  group  of  documents  which  are,  to  an  unusual  degree, 
many-sided  ;  and  that,  forced  as  I  am  to  leave  out  of  view 
much  of  the  character  of  the  documents,  I  am  far  from 
ignoring  or  disparaging  that  which  I  do  not  explicitly 
mention.  My  point  is  that,  if  the  points  which  I  lay  stress 
on  are  not  absolutely  false,  the  inferences  here  stated  must 
follow. 

I  shall  first  state  shortly  my  view  of  the  character  of  this 
Epistle,  and  shall  thereafter  criticise  two  different  views : 
the  criticism  will  serve  to  render  more  precise  my  own  view 
and  the  reasons  for  it. 

The  First  Epistle  of  St.  Peter  is  addressed  to  all  the 
Christian  communities  of  Asia  Minor  north  of  the  Taurus.* 
They  are  regarded  as  exposed  to  persecution  (i.  6),  not 
merely  in  the  form  of  dislike  and  malevolence  on  the  part 
of  neighbours,  though  that  is,  of  course,  an  additional  and 
trying  element  of  the  situation,  but  persecution  to  the 
death  (iv.  15,  16),  after  trial  and  question  (iii.  15).  f  The 
persecution  is  general,  and  extends  over  the  whole  Church 
(v.  9).  The  Christians  are  not  merely  tried  when  a  private 
accuser  comes  forward  against  them,  but  are  sought  out  for 


♦  See  above,  pp.  no,  187. 

t  The  Greek,  okoKo-^'mv  and  oxtovvti  Xoyov,  is  more  precise  than  the 
English  version.     For  other  views,  see  below,  p.  291  flf. 


XIII.   AutJiorities  for  the  Flavian  Period.    281 

trial  by  the  Roman  officials  (v.  8,  iii.  15).*  They  suffer  for 
the  Name  (iv.  14-16)  pure  and  simple;  the  trial  takes  the 
form  of  an  inquiry  into  their  rcligion,t  giving  them  the 
opportunity  of  "  glorifying  God  in  this  Name." 

The  picture  is  here  complete.  We  have  the  fully  de- 
veloped kind  of  trial  which  we  suppose  to  have  been 
instituted  about  7S-8o,  and  which  was  carried  out  by  Pliny 
as  part  of  the  fixed  policy  of  the  Empire  towards  the 
Christians.  These  circumstances  are  essentially  different 
from  those  of  the  Neronian  period.  The  resulting  action 
was  indeed  much  the  same ;  many  Christians  were  in 
each  case  executed  in  barbarous  ways  ;  but  the  legal  and 
political  aspects  of  the  situation  were  very  different. 

But  I  Peter  does  not  look  back  over  a  period  of  perse- 
cution. It  rather  looks  forward  to  it  as  the  condition  in 
which  the  Christians  have  to  live.  The  State  is  absolutely 
hostile,  raging  against  them,  seeking  them  out  for  destruc- 
tion (v.  8,  9)  ;  but  it  is  not  yet  regarded,  as  it  is  in  later 
documents,  as  inexorably  and  inevitably,  from  its  very 
nature,  opposed  to  the  Christians.  By  steadily  avoiding  all 
just  cause  of  offence,  by  convincing  the  world  of  their  good 
works,  by  strict  obedience  to  the  laws  of  the  State,  to  the 
Emperor,  and  to  the  provincial  governors,  they  may  put 


•  A  trial  which  involved  the  penalty  of  death  could  take  place 
only  before  Roman  officials  of  high  rank.  They  that  are  sought  out 
for  such  a  trial  must  be  sought  out  by  order  of  Roman  officials. 

t  iv.  14-16  refers  obviously  to  trials  issuing  in  death.  Christians 
are  to  face  gladly  the  accusation  of  bearing  the  Name  and  the  death 
that  it  entails,  and  to  fear  only  such  crimes  as  would  justify  their 
execution.  The  passage  loses  much  of  its  significance,  unless  the 
question  put  to  the  accused  is  of  the  type,  "  Are  you  a  Christian  ?  " 
The  words,  jrtpl  t^s  iv  vn'iv  (Xnlbos,  iii.  15,  define  the  subject  of  the 
enquiry. 


282         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

their  slanderers  to  silence,  and  emerge  from  their  fiery 
trials  (ii.  11-15).  It  is  clear  from  this  analysis  of  the 
situation  that  the  writer  stands  at  the  beginning  of  the 
new  period.  He  still  clings  to  the  idea  that  the  Christians 
are  persecuted  because  they  are  believed  to  be  guilty  of 
great  crimes  ;  the  old  charges  of  the  Neronian  time  are 
still  in  his  memory,  and  he  hopes  that,  if  the  absurdity  of 
these  charges  be  fully  brought  home  to  the  minds  of  men, 
the  persecution  must  be  stopped.  Hence  he  reiterates 
St.  Paul's  advice.*  The  social  order  is  not  to  be  interfered 
with :  slaves  are  to  respect  their  masters  in  spite  of  bad 
treatment ;  divisions  within  the  family  on  account  of  religion 
are  to  be  avoided.  This  attitude  belongs  to  one  whose 
experience  has  been  gained  in  the  first  period  of  Chris- 
tianity, in  the  time  of  Claudius  and  Nero,  and  who  is  now 
at  the  beginning  of  a  new  period.  He  recognises  the  fact 
that  Christians  now  suffer  as  witnesses  to  the  Name,  and 
for  the  Name  pure  and  simple  ;  but  he  hardly  realises  all 
that  was  thereby  implied. 

The  First  Epistle  of  Peter  then  must  have  been  written 
soon  after  Vespasian's  resumption  of  the  Neronian  policy 
in  a  more  precise  and  definite  form.  It  implies  relations 
between  Church  and  State  which  are  later  than  the 
Neronian  period,  but  which  have  only  recently  begun. 

If  the  date  about  A.D.  80,  to  which  we  ascribe  i  Peter, 
is  correct,  either  the  author  cannot  be  the  Apostle  Peter, 
or  the  usual  view,  according  to  which  Peter  perished  at 
Rome  in  the  Neronian  persecution,  is  not  correct.  Now 
while  the  tradition  that  St  Peter  perished  in  Rome  is  strong 
and  early,  the  tradition  about  the  date  of  his  death  is  not 

•  See  above,  p.  246. 


XIII.    AutJioriiies  for  the  Flavian  Period.    283 

so  clear*  The  earliest  authority  for  the  date  is  Origen, 
who  places  his  martyrdom  under  Nero  before  that  of  Paul. 
Tertullian  also  seems  in  one  passage  to  assign  it  to  the 
time  of  Nero ;  but  in  another  passage  he  mentions  the 
tradition  of  the  Roman  Church  that  Clement  was  ordained 
by  St.  Petcr.t  The  latter  passage  is  the  strongest  evidence  '- 
which  we  possess  on  the  point,  and  it  clearly  proves  that 
the  Roman  tradition  during  the  latter  part  of  the  second 
century  placed  the  martyrdom  much  later  than  the  time 
of  Nero.J  The  tradition  that  he  lived  for  a  long  time  in 
Rome  is  also  strong,  and,  as  Dr.  Harnack  justly  says,  "  it 
is  difficult  to  suppose  that  so  large  a  body  of  tradition  has 
no  foundation  in  fact."§  But  conclusive  reasons  show  that 
he  cannot  have  been  in  Rome  long  before  the  Neronian 
persecution  ;  and  therefore  a  long  residence  there  is  im- 
possible unless  he  lived  to  a  much  later  date. 

The  only  early  tradition  with  regard  to  St.  Peter's  later 
life,  then,  is  that  which  was  accepted  by  the  Roman  Church 
during  the  second  century,  and  it  is  to  the  effect  that 
St.  Peter  lived  in  Rome  till  long  after  the  time  of  Nero. 
The  tradition  that  he  died  under  Nero  is  not  a  real  tradition, 
but  an  historical  theory,  framed  at  the  time  when  all  recol- 


*  In  the  original  lectures  this  date  was  treated  as  inconsistent  with 
Petrine  authorship.  A  conversation  with  Dr.  Hort  suggested  the 
view  now  taken.  In  the  rest  of  this  paragraph  I  am  indebted  to 
Lightfoot,  Clement,  ii.,  p.  494  fif. 

t  Origen  in  Eusebius,  H.  E.,  iii.  \  ;  Tertullian,  Scorp.,  15  (about 
215  A.D.);  in  de  J)rcBscript,2)2  (about  199,  'iHoeidech.&n,  Abfassungs- 
zett  d.  Schr.  TerL),  he  mentions  the  Roman  tradition. 

X  In  the  extreme  uncertainty  of  the  history  of  the  early  Roman 
episcopate  it  is  not  possible  to  fix  an  exact  date  for  the  ordination 
of  Clement. 

§  Harnack  on  "  Peter  "  in  the  Encycl.  Brit.,  ninth  edition. 


284         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

lection  of  the  true  relations  between  the  State  and  the 
Christians  had  perished,  and  when  it  was  believed  that 
there  had  been  two  separate  and  single  persecutions,  one 
by  Nero,  and  one  by  Domitian  in  his  later  years.  As  to 
the  date  of  the  Epistle  there  is  no  tradition,  and  it  is  merely 
a  modern  theory,  keenly  contested  by  many,  that  places  the 
composition  about  A.D.  64. 

It  has  been  said  that  Clement,  ad.  Cor.,  4,  mentions 
Peter's  death  before  Paul's,  and  that  his  order  is  naturally 
taken  as  chronological.  I  see  no  reason  to  think  that  in 
mentioning  "  the  good  apostles  "  Clement  must  be  supposed 
to  follow  chronological  order.  It  may  have  been  the 
natural  order  for  a  Roman,  even  then,  to  mention  Peter 
first.  The  passage  is  quite  as  effective  in  expression  if 
Peter's  death  was  more  recent  than  Paul's.* 

The  history  of  the  spread  of  Christianity  imperatively 
demands  for  i  Peter  a  later  date  than  A.D,  64.  When  it 
was  written  the  new  religion  had  been  diffused  over  all  the 
provinces  of  Asia  Minor,  north  of  Taurus.  The  impression 
that  we  get  from  Acts  is,  that  the  evangelisation  of  Asia 
Minor  originated  from  St.  Paul ;  and  that  from  his  initiative 
the  new  religion  gradually  spread  over  the  country  through 
the  action  of  many  other  missionaries  (Acts  xix.  10). 
Moreover,  missionaries  not  trained  by  him  were  at  work 

*  It  is  remarkable  that  Lightfoot,  Clement,  i.,  p.  344,  should  say, 
"  Whether  Tertullian,  when  he  states  that  the  Roman  Church  re- 
corded Clement  to  have  been  ordained  by  St.  Peter,  was  influenced, 
etc.,  or  whether  it  was  his  own  independent  inference,  etc.,  we  have 
no  means  of  determining."  Surely  we  have  means  of  determining — 
viz.,  by  believing  Tertullian' s  plain  statement,  that  he  is  doing 
neither  of  the  things  suggested  by  Lightfoot,  but  is  quoting  the 
tradition  current  in  Rome.  His  own  "  independent  inference"  seems 
rather  to  have  been  that  Peter  died  under  Nero,  Scorj).,  15. 


XIII.   AutJwrities  for  the  Flavian  Period.    285 

in  South  Galatia  and  in  Ephesus  as  early  as  54-56  A.D. 
(Gal.  V.  7-10-;  Acts  xviii.  25).  If  we  can  assume  that  this 
account  is  not  absolutely  unhistorical,  and  that  Christianity 
was  extending  along  the  main  line  of  intercourse  across 
the  Empire  between  50  and  60,  it  is  inconceivable  that, 
before  A.D.  64,  (i)  it  had  spread  away  from  that  line  across 
the  country  through  the  northern  provinces ;  (2)  so  much 
organisation  and  intercommunication  had  grown  up  as  is 
implied  in  i  Peter,  where  a  person  writing  from  Rome  is 
familiar  with  the  condition  and  wants  of  the  congregations, 
and  advises  them  with  some  authority. 

We  have  already  seen  that  Christianity  is  not  likely  to 
have  reached  Amisos  before  A.D.  65  ;  and  if  we  assume  that 
this  great  further  development  had  taken  place  in  time  for 
I  Peter  to  be  written  about  75-80,  we  are  straining  historical 
probability  as  far  as  the  evidence  will  reasonably  permit. 
So  far  as  an  opinion  is  possible,  they  that  make  Peter  write 
to  the  congregations  of  Pontus  during  Nero's  reign  remove 
the  story  of  early  Christianity  from  the  sphere  of  history 
into  that  of  the  marvellous  and  supernatural ;  and  it  lies 
outside  of  the  plan  of  this  work  to  follow  them. 

It  is  no  argument  against  the  date  when  we  consider 
Christianity  to  have  reached  Amisos,  that  it  must  have 
reached  Rome  as  early  as  A.D.  55-6.  In  the  state  of  the 
Empire  Rome  was  easier  to  reach  than  Amisos  ;  *  and  all 
movements  of  thought  spread  first  to  Rome.  Nor  does  it 
constitute  any  real  objection  to  our  dating,  that,  in  the 
Pastoral  Epistles,  the  new  religion  is  spoken  of  as  spreading 
to  Dalmatia  and  other  places  off  the  main  line  of  com- 
munication.    Assuming  the  genuineness  of  these  Epistles, 

*  See  Hist.  Geogr.,  p.  26. 


286        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

we  must  attribute  this  rapid  spread  of  Christianity  in  the 
years  following  Paul's  release  to  his  extraordinary  activity 
and  energy ;  and  concurrently  therewith  we  place  the 
evang-elisation  of  Amisos  and  the  north  coast  of  Asia 
Minor. 

Moreover,  the  strong  analogies  which  i  Peter  shows  to 
JameSf  Romans^  and  Epkesians,  implying  that  the  writer 
was  familiar  with  all  these  letters,  are  more  easily 
explicable  if  i  Peter  was  composed  about  A.D.  80. 
Holtzmann  indeed  uses  them  as  an  argument  against  the 
Petrine  authorship  of  the  Epistle,  and  Lightfoot  *  has  not 
cleared  away  the  difficulty  which  they  cause  if  the  com- 
position of  I  Peter  is  assigned  to  A.D.  6^)  or  64. 

It  seems  difficult  to  explain  this  character  in  I  Peter,  and 
the  influence  which  these  three  Epistles  have  exercised  on 
it,  except  in  the  way  which  Holtzmann  has  done.  These 
Epistles  were  known  to  the  writer,  and  were  esteemed  by 
him  as  works  of  high  authority  and  value.  A  certain  lapse 
of  time  for  the  formation  of  this  authoritative  character 
seems  required  ;  but  it  is  entirely  in  keeping  with  the  view 
we  take  of  the  organisation  of  the  Church  during  the 
Flavian  period  that  these  letters  should  have  acquired  that 
character  before  A.D.  80  (see  p.  367). 

That  this  Epistle  was  written  from  Rome,  I  cannot  doubt. 
It  is  impregnated  with  Roman  thought  to  a  degree  beyond 
any  other  book  in  the  Bible ;  the  relation  to  the  State  and 
its  officers  forms  an  unusually  large  part  of  the  whole.  It 
seems,  if  I  may  venture  to  hold  an  opinion  on  such  a  point, 
to  presuppose  a  more  organised  and  inter-connected  state 
of  the  entire  Church  than  most  documents  included  in  the 

•  Clement,  ii.,  p.  499. 


XIII.    Aitthorities  for  the  Flavian  Period.    287 

New  Testament,  more  so  than  even  the  Pastoral  Epistles. 
It  is  far  advanced  on  the  path  that  leads  to  the  letter  of 
Clement  to  the  Corinthians.  The  reference  to  Rome  as 
"  Babylon "  *  implies  a  developed  state  of  symbolic  ex- 
pression approximating  to  that  of  the  Apocalypse.  The 
letter  is  addressed  to  "  the  elect  who  are  sojourners  of  the 
Dispersion  "  in  Asia  I\Iinor.  The  congregations  of  Asia 
Minor  were  composed  of  persons  that  had  been  Pagans 
(iv.  2,  3).  It  is  contrary  to  all  reasonable  probability  that 
they  contained  any  appreciably  large  Jewish  element ;  and 
if  Acts  is  a  historical  authority  of  any  value  whatever,  the 
Jewish  population  was,  as  a  body,  strenuously  opposed  to 
the  Christians  of  Asia  Minor.  How  then  can  a  Jew,  like 
Peter,  speak  of  these  congregations  by  the  Jewish  title 
Diaspora?  It  is  because,  writing  after  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  and  recognising  the  utter  change  that  had 
thereby  been  produced  both  for  Judaism  and  for  the 
possible  development  of  Christianity,  he  now  appreciated 
the  unique  position  and  the  importance  of  the  Asia  Minor 
churches  (see  p.  171),  and  regarded  them  as  the  chief 
guarantee  for  the  unity  which  had  once — in  his  view — 
centred  in  Jerusalem,  and  was  now  scattered  abroad  (sec 
p.  no). 

There  are  several  points  in  this  Epistle  which  have  a 
more  vivid  and  forcible  character,  if  we  date  it  as  late  as 
A.D.  75-80  ;  whereas  if  it  belongs  to  a  period  earlier  than 
A.D.   64,  their   natural   force   has   to   be,  to   some  degree, 

•  That  Babylon  should  be  understood  as  the  Chaldaean  city 
appears  to  conflict  so  entirely  with  all  record  and  early  tradition, 
as  to  hardly  need  discussion.  But  that  a  Jew,  whose  life  had  been 
spent  in  Palestine  and  Chaldaea,  should  write  so  romanised  a  letter 
is  even  more  improbable. 


288         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

modified.  In  the  reference  to  the  Devil  (v.  8)  we  have  a 
step  towards  the  strongly  developed  idea  of  the  World, 
which  is  described  below  (see  §  5).  In  this  case  the  ex- 
pression is  more  purely  metaphorical  and  ethical ;  but  the 
action  of  agents  seeking  and  arresting  Christians  is  included, 
and  gives  point  and  pertinence  to  the  metaphor.  The 
State,  however,  is  not  yet  conceived  as  the  irreconcilable 
enemy  (see  p.  296). 

Again,  the  reference  to  hospitality  (iv.  8,  9)  has  more  force, 
if  the  Epistle  was  written  after  the  Church  had  begun  to 
appreciate,  with  full  consciousness,  the  importance  of  inter- 
communication. Paul  appreciated  this  very  early,  and 
insists  on  it  frequently  (Rom.  xii.  13  ;  i  Tim.  iii.  2  ;  Titus  i. 
8  ;  cp.  Hebr.  xiii.  2) ;  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  imagine  Peter 
appreciating  it,  until  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  made  it 
clear  that  the  local  unity  of  a  central  sanctuary  was  ex- 
changed for  the  ideal  unity  of  constant  intercourse  and 
mutual  welcome.*  Otherwise  we  must  take  iv.  8,  9,  as 
merely  urging  in  a  general  way  the  duty  of  hospitality, 
which  hardly  needs  such  prominence,  considering  the  state 
of  contemporary  society. 

The  date  of  i  Peter  seems  clearly  fixed.  If  it  was  written 
by  St.  Peter,  reasons  founded  on  his  character  and  history 
confirm  the  late  date.  If  it  be  proved  that  he  died  before 
A.D.  70,  we  should  have  to  assign  the  composition  (like 
2  Peter)  to  another  author. 

2.  Later  Date  assigned  to  i  Peter. 

Many  critics  have  fully  realised  that  the  Epistle  does  not 
suit  the  time  of  Nero,  but,  misled  by  the  false  interpretation 

*  Hence  Clement  urges  on  the  Corinthians  the  duty  of  (piXo^tvia, 
§1,  10-12,  35.     See  above,  p.  10. 


XIII.    AuthoiHties  for  the  Flavian  Period.    2S9 

of  Pliny's  report  to  Trajan,  have  dated  its  composition  too 
late.  Holtzmann's  article  in  Schenkel's  Bibel-Lexikon, 
iv.,  p.  296,  may  be  taken  as  the  best  statement  of  the 
historical  arguments  on  which  this  Epistle  has  been  assigned 
to  the  period  of  Trajan  or  Hadrian. 

1.  "  In  the  Epistle,  iv.  15,  the  Christians  of  Bithynia  and 
other  pro\ances  are  warned  against  murder,  theft,  and  other 
crimes  ;  and,  according  to  Pliny,  the  Christians  of  Bithynia 
were  in  the  habit  of  taking  an  oath  to  avoid  such  crimes." 

Such  is  one  of  Holtzmann's  arguments,  which  would  be 
irresistible,  if  he  could  add  the  proof  that  the  Christians 
first  began  to  avoid  these  crimes  about  1 1 2.  This  essential 
part  of  his  argument  he  has  omitted. 

2.  "  In  the  Epistle  trials  of  Christians  are  alluded  to, 
iii.  15,  and  such  trials  were  held  by  Pliny  in  Bithynia." 

Again  Holtzmann  omits  the  essential  part  of  his  argu- 
ment— viz.,  the  proof  that  such  trials  were  first  held  by 
Pliny.  When  we  find  a  series  of  trials  of  Christians  before 
Roman  officials,  beginning  with  that  of  Jesus  and  reaching 
through  the  time  of  Paul  and  the  whole  of  the  first  century, 
we  can  see  no  cogency  in  Holtzmann's  reasoning. 

3.  "  In  the  Epistle  it  is  implied  that  the  issue  in  these 
trials  turns  on  the  simple  question  whether  the  accused  is 
a  Christian,  and  that  question  first  came  to  the  front  under 
Trajan." 

The  first  part  of  this  argument  we  fully  accept.  It  states, 
in  brief,  the  essential  and  critical  point,  which  distinguishes 
the  language  of  this  Epistle  from  all  earlier  references  to 
persecution.  But  we  have  seen  that,  while  the  trials  of 
Trajan's  time  were  certainly  conducted  on  this  principle, 
the  procedure  was  then  settled  by  long  usage. 

Such  are  the  reasons  which  lead  Holtzmann  and  many 

19 


290         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

others  to  date  i  Peter  about  115- 13 5.*  We  can  see  no 
validity  in  them.  On  the  contrary,  we  observe  that  the 
tendency  of  Trajan's  rescript  was  to  put  an  end  to  the  state 
of  things  implied  in  the  Epistle.  He  forbade  the  seeking  out 
of  Christians,  which  is  expressly  referred  to  in  iii.  15,  v.  8. 
We  cannot,  indeed,  prove  that  this  prohibition,  addressed  to 
a  single  governor,  immediately  became  universal ;  but  no 
one  who  has  studied  the  character  of  Trajan  will  doubt, 
that  the  principle  which  he  formulated  to  Pliny  resulted 
from  a  consideration  of  the  whole  evidence  as  collected  and 
arranged  in  the  Imperial  archives,  and  was  the  fixed  rule  of 
his  policy.  Moreover,  Hadrian  confirmed  still  more  em- 
phatically the  prohibition.  If  i  Peter  is  not  earlier  than 
A.D.  112,  we  cannot  place  it  earlier  than  161  (see  below, 
P-  Z})7^i  ^  ^^te  which  requires  no  notice,  and  has  never 
been  seriously  proposed. 

3.  Official  Action  implied  in  i  Peter. 

Many  writers  have  sought  to  minimise  and  to  explain 
away  the  references  to  persecution  in  this  Epistle.  Having 
accepted  too  readily  the  dominant  view  as  to  the  relations 
between  the  Empire  and  the  Church,  they  could  not  resist 
the  argument  that,  if  i  Peter  implies  a  developed  perse- 
cution by  the  State,  it  must  be  as  late  as  Trajan.     Yet 

•  The  rest  of  his  reasons  go  to  prove  only  the  disagreement 
between  the  Epistle  and  the  facts  of  the  Neronian  period.  So  far 
we  cannot  disagree  from  his  conclusion,  though  his  statement  that 
during  that  period  action  against  the  Christians  was  confined  to 
Rome  is  incorrect :  we  have  seen  (i)  that  it  was  inherent  in  the 
Imperial  system  that  the  Emperor's  action  should  form  a  model 
for  all  provincial  governors ;  (2)  that  Suetonius  considered  Nero 
to  have  laid  down  a  permanent  principle  of  action  against  the 
Christians. 


XIII.   Authorities  for  the  Flavian  Period.    29 1 

they  rightly  appreciated  the  marks  of  an  early  date  in  the 
Epistle,  and,  thereby  feeling  bound  to  place  it  in  the  first 
century,  they  naturally  and  inevitably  estimated  too  lightly 
the  references  to  persecution.  As  the  best  expression  of 
this  view,  a  few  sentences  may  be  quoted  from  Dr.  Marcus 
Dods'  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament,  p.  200.  My 
personal  respect  for  the  writer,  and  my  high  admiration 
for  most  of  his  work,  make  me  reluctant  in  this  case  to 
differ  from  him  so  completely  ;  but  the  same  clearness, 
preciseness,  and  completeness  of  statement,  which  raise 
his  work  to  high  rank,  make  him  in  this  case  a  perfect 
exponent  of  the  view  that  sacrifices  the  natural  force  in 
order  to  preserve  the  orthodox  dating.  He  admits  that 
"  the  letter  was  written  to  Christians,  who  were  suffering 
for  their  religion  "  ;  but  maintains  that  "  the  persecution  to 
which  they  were  being  subjected  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  instituted  by  the  magistrate  or  governor  of  the  district 
in  which  they  lived,  but  to  have  been  of  a  social  kind. 
They  had  refused  to  join  their  old  associates  in  '  excess  of 
riot '  (iv.  4),  and  were  therefore  calumniated.  They  were 
spoken  of  as  evildoers  (iii.  16,  ii.  12);  and  they  were 
urged  by  Peter  to  prove  by  their  conduct  that  these 
accusations  were  false.  These  accusations,  therefore,  were 
social  calumnies,  and  not  legal  indictments.  Indeed,  Peter 
hints  (iii.  13),  that  to  be  free  from  persecution  they  have 
only  to  continue  in  well-doing,  each  in  his  own  position, 
whether  as  servant  (ii.  18-25),  as  wife  (iii.  1-6),  or  as 
husband  (iii.  7).  There  is  no  allusion  to  trial  before  the 
authorities,  nor  to  imprisonment,  nor  to  death.  Even  the 
strongest  passage  adduced  in  favour  of  these  views  (iv.  16) 
will  not  bear  such  an  interpretation.  It  is  '  reproach  *  that 
they  suffered  as  Christians,  and  the  fear  is  that  they  would 


292         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire, 

be  '  ashamed  '  of  this  reproach,  and  their  dehverance  from  it 
was  still  to  be  by  unmurmuring  patience  and  continuance 
in  well-doing  (iv.  19)." 

In  answer  to  this  view,  attention  may  be  directed  to  the 
following  points : 

I.  The  Christians  are  addressed  as  persons  exposed  to 
suffer  death.  The  words,  "  Let  none  of  you  suffer  as  a 
murderer,  or  as  a  thief;  but,  if  (a  man  suffer)  as  a  Christian, 
let  him  glorify  God  in  this  Name"  (iv.  15,  16),  have 
no  satisfactory  meaning,  unless  those  to  whom  they  are 
addressed  are  liable  to  execution  :  the  verb  in  the  second 
clause  is  understood  from  the  preceding  clause,  and  must 
have  the  same  sense.  Moreover,  if  we  suppose  that 
"  suffer  "  in  the  second  clause  could  have  the  milder  sense 
attributed  to  it  by  Dr.  Dods,  the  whole  sentence  then 
implies  :  "  Do  not  commit  murder  and  be  executed  for  it ; 
and  if  your  neighbours  make  fun  of  you  as  a  Christian,  do 
not  be  ashamed  of  this  name."  What  a  feeble  production 
does  this  noble  letter  then  become !  A  leader  of  the 
religion  writes  to  his  co-religionists  in  a  distant  land, 
advising  them  to  abstain  from  murder  and  theft,  and  to 
disregard  their  neighbours'  jeers.  This  is  the  meaning  of 
what  Dr.  Dods  calls  "  the  strongest  passage  "  in  that  letter, 
about  which  Lightfoot  says  that  "  no  other  book  of  the 
New  Testament,  except  the  Apocalypse,  is  so  burdened 
with  the  subject  [of  persecution]  :  the  leading  purpose  of 
the  letter  is  to  console  and  encourage  his  distant  corre- 
spondents under  the  fiery  trial  which  awaited  them."  *  Had 
all  manhood  and  steadfastness  disappeared  from  Peter,  or 
from  the  Asian  Christians,  that  he  should  write  to  them 

•  Clement^  ii.,  p.  498. 


XIII.    Aiithorities  for  the  Flavian  Period.     293 

like  this,  about  a  situation  which  was  prevented  from  being 
comfortable  by  their  neighbours'  discourtesy  and  rudeness  ? 
All  reality  of  tone,  all  nobleness,  all  power,  disappear  from 
this  letter,  unless  it  be  addressed  to  those  who  are  liable  to 
suffer  unto  death  as  Christians. 

2.  In  the  Roman  Empire  the  right  of  capital  punish- 
ment belonged  only  to  a  small  number  of  high  officials. 
No  Asian  Christian  was  liable  to  suffer  death  except 
through  the  action  of  the  governor  of  his  province.  If 
the  Christians  are  liable  to  suffer  unto  death,  persecution 
by  the  State  must  be  in  process. 

3.  The  charges  enumerated  in  iv.  15  are  those  which  the 
writer  thought  likely  to  be  brought  against  the  Christians. 
He  had  known  the  Neronian  system,  when  the  Chris- 
tians were  tried  and  convicted  of  definite  criminal  acts ; 
and  he  knew  also  the  charges  currently  made  against 
them  by  popular  scandal.  In  this  way  he  is  led  to  the 
phrase  of  iii.  15  and  iv.  15  :  "  Murder,  theft,  gross 
crimes,*  tampering  with  the  slaves  and  the  families  of 
others  f — these  and  similar  charges  will  be  brought  against 

*  These  charges  are  all  implied  in  the  accusation  of  GueVrtia  hCvtrva. 
See  pp.  205,  237. 

t  The  remarkable  word  dXXorptofTri'o-KOTros  has  never  been  explained. 
It  appears  to  be  a  rendering  in  Greek  of  a  charge  brought  against 
the  Christians,  which  had  no  single  term  to  denote  it,  and  for  which 
this  bold  compound  was  framed  b}'  the  writer.  I  cannot  doubt  that  it 
refers  to  the  charge  of  tampering  with  family  relationships,  causing 
disunion  and  discord,  rousing  discontent  and  disobedience  among 
slaves,  and  so  on.  We  have  already  seen  (pp.  236  and  28^)  how 
much  importance  this  charge  had,  and  how  strenuously  Paul  and 
Peter  urge  the  Christians  not  to  provoke  or  justify  it.  Professor 
Mommsen  writes  that  speculator  alie7ti  of  Tertullian,  Scorp.,  12, 
is  a  wide  term,  which  might  denote  even  a  thief  and  a  kidnapper 
{Jilagiarius,  qui  servos  alienus  intercipit) ;  though  I  do  not  know 


294        ^^^  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire 

you.  Give  no  colour  to  them  by  your  life  ;  avoid  the  risk 
of  perishing  by  such  a  disgraceful  death  ;  *  but  be  proud 
when  you  are  called  on  to  make  your  defence  concerning 
the  hope  that  is  in  you  (iii.  15),  and  to  be  executed  as 
Christians,"  f 

It  would  be  a  useful,  but  far  too  long,  task  to  go  over  the 
whole  Epistle,  pointing  out  how  vividly  various  passages 
in  it  express  the  character  of  Roman  action  against  the 
Christians  :  the  official  action,  and  the  terror  caused  by  its 
awful  surroundings,  the  pressure  of  public  opinion  and 
popular  dislike,  the  open  expression  of  opinion  by  the 
circle  of  spectators  round  the  tribunal,  and  the  social  perse- 
cution which  became  powerful  and  serious  as  a  concomitant 
to  legal  proceedings,  but  which  would  be  of  little  conse- 
quence unless  abetted  and  completed  by  official  judgment. 
The  alliance  between  popular  and  judicial  action  was 
necessary  for  any  real  persecution  in  the  Roman  Empire. 
This  does  not  naturally  occur  to  us  ;  but  it  will  be  shown  in 
Ch.  XV.  that  the  thoroughness  of  persecution  was,  to  a  very 


whether  he  would  approve  of  the  connotation  which  I  give  to  the 
Greek  and  the  Latin  term  in  this  case.  The  other  Latin  renderings, 
alienorum  appelitor,  curas  alienas  agens,  are  vague  and  useless 
guesses.     (On  this  subject  see  Ch.  XV.,  §1.) 

*  M.  Le  Blant,  in  his  Supplem.  aux  Acies  des  Martyrs,  p.  173, 
alludes  to  the  disUke  expressed  by  St.  Felicitas  and  other  martyrs 
to  be  executed  along  with  criminals ;  they  gloried  in  suffering  as 
Christians,  but  shrank  from  even  the  appearance  of  being  executed 
for  crimes  {Acta  Perpetucs,  15).  The  same  feeling  actuates  the 
expression  of  i  Peter  iv.  15. 

t  The  two  passages,  iii.  15  andiv.  15,  must  betaken  in  connection 
'ATroXoyiai/  is  a  strong  term,  strictly  a  legal  term,  a  defence  against  a 
formal  accusation.     Unless  formal  trials  were  in  the  writer's  mind, 
I  do  not  think  he  would  express  himself  thus ;   though  any  less 
formal  challenge  is  included. 


XIII.    Authorities  for  the  Flavian  Period.    295 

great  extent,  dependent  on  the  co-operation  of  the  popu- 
lace. Such  is  the  state  of  things  that  is  presupposed 
throughout  i  Peter  :  the  mixture  of  official  and  popular 
action  is  very  clearly  expressed.  But  the  official  action,  as 
a  necessary  part  of  the  situation,*  is  clearly  implied  in  the 
language  of  iii.  15,  16,  iv.  15,  etc.;  and  to  ignore  it  is  to 
sacrifice  much  of  the  character  of  a  letter,  which  is  instruc- 
tive beyond  all  others  with  regard  to  the  position  of  the 
Christians  in  the  Empire,  after  the  development  of  official 
action  had  taken  place. 

As  to  the  argument  which  is  founded  by  Dr.  Dods  on 
the  advice  to  avoid  persecution  by  continuance  in  well- 
doing, I  trust  that  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  advice 
has  been  give  on  p.  281-2. 

4.  The  Evidence  of  the  Apocalypse. 

We  turn  next  to  a  work  of  notorious  difficulty,  the 
Apocalypse.  Here  the  moving  spirit  of  the  vision  is  the 
sufferings  of  the  Church.  The  scene  lies  wholly  in  the  Eastern 
Provinces,  and  especially  in  Asia  among  the  seven  churches  ; 
for  Rome  is  on  the  extreme  horizon,  and  is  conceived  only 
as  the  distant  metropolis  where  the  martyrs  are  sent  to 
suffer  the  death  decreed  against  them.  Only  in  this  way,  as 
Mommsen  f  has  pointed  out,  can  the  reference  to  Rome  as 
the  woman  drunk  with  the  blood  of  the  saints  and  witnesses 
of  Jesus   be  explained  (xvii.   6).     In  this  phrase  there  is 

•  On  this  subject,  as  a  whole,  see  below,  p.  373.  The  developed 
language  of  James  must  not  be  quoted  in  this  connexion.  James 
wrote  to  Jews,  whose  situation  was  utterly  different.  (See  p.  349) 
Peter  wrote  to  Gentile  Christians. 

t  Proviin  's  of  the  Roman  £m^ire,  ii.  199,  of  the  English 
tranf^latioa. 


296         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

implied  a  wide-spread  persecution  with  many  victims  ;  and 
the  sufferers  are  witnesses  to  the  Name,  not  persons  con- 
demned, even  though  unjustly,  for  specific  crimes.  Many 
other  passages  imply  that  the  Church  was  exposed  to  a 
long-continued  persecution  to  the  death  (vi.  9 ;  vii.  14 ; 
xii.  1 1  ;  xiii.  1 5  ;  xvi.  6  ;  xvii.  6  ;  xviii.  24  ;  xx.  4,  etc.)  ;  and 
the  persecution  is  likely  to  last  (vi.  11). 

The  victims  of  this  persecution  are  witnesses  to  the  Name, 
or  the  word  of  God  (ii.  13;  vi.  9 ;  xii.  1 1  ;  xvii.  6),  which 
implies  that  their  death  springs  directly  from  their  acknow- 
ledgment of  their  religion,  and  not  from  conviction,  even  on 
false  evidence,  for  specific  crimes  (^flagitia).  But  it  is  also 
implied  that  the  persecutor  is  worshipped  as  a  God  by  all 
people  *  except  the  Christians  (xiii.  8),  and  that  the  martyrs 
are  slain  because  they  do  not  worship  the  Beast — i-e.^  the 
Roman  Emperor  (xiii.  15).  Hence  their  refusal  to  worship 
the  Beast  and  their  witness  to  their  own  God  are  united  in 
one  act ;  and  this  implies  that  worship  of  the  Beast  formed 
a  test,  the  refusal  of  which  was  equivalent  to  a  confession 
and  witness.  Here  we  touch  on  the  feature  which  for  our 
purposes  is  of  the  first  importance — viz.,  the  absolute  and 
irreconcilable  opposition  between  the  Church  and  the 
Empire.  The  latter  is  the  very  incarnation  and  mani- 
festation of  evil.  The  one  characteristic,  by  which  it 
concerns  the  Church,  is  the  hatred  and  the  firm  resolution 

*  Incidentally  we  note  that  this  expression  is  a  typical  instance 
of  the  fact  which  we  have  already  observed  (p.  236).  The  mind 
of  the  writer  is  practically  restricted  to  the  Roman  world.  The 
expression  "all  that  dwell  on  the  earth"  has  not  the  nature  of  an 
exaggeration,  for  it  is  in  accord  with  the  unconscious  restrictions  of 
the  writer's  view.  He  thinks,  like  a  Roman,  that  genus  humanunt 
is  the  Roman  world.  The  nations  which  did  not  worship  the 
Emperor  were  never  present  to  his  mind. 


XIII.   Aitthorities  for  the  Flavian  Period.    297 

with  which  it  seeks  to  destroy  Christianity.  There  is  no 
wish  for  reconciliation  with  the  persecuting  power,  only  for 
vengeance  on  it  (vi.  9-1 1  ;  ix.  4)  ;  there  is  no  thought  of  the 
possibility  of  bringing  the  State  to  a  milder  policy  by  con- 
vincing it  of  the  harmlessness  of  Christianity. 

The  visions  in  the  Apocalypse  may  be  taken  as  an 
historical  authority,  for  they  arise  directly  out  of  the  situa- 
tion of  the  Church.  Moreover,  every  detail  of  persecution 
that  occurs  in  the  visions  may  be  paralleled  from  the 
messages  to  the  churches  which  are  prefixed  to  them.  The 
messages  indeed  do  not  refer  in  such  clear  terms  to  perse- 
cution. But  the  single  example  of  a  martyr  quoted  by 
name,  Antipas  of  Pergamos  (ii.  13),  shows  what  is  meant 
by  the  "  patience  "  of  Ephesus  and  the  "  tribulation  "  of 
Smyrna.  Antipas  remained  for  some  reason  (perhaps  as 
being  the  first  of  his  class)  *  personally  and  individually  in 
the  memory  of  the  Asian  Church.  Moreover,  the  persecution 
has  been  long-standing  (ii.  13),  and  is  to  continue  for  a 
time  (ii.  10).  Again,  the  importance  attached  during  this 
persecution  to  the  worship  of  the  Emperor,  and  the  hatred 
for  this  special  form  of  idolatry  as  the  special  enemy,  have 
dictated  the  phrase  addressed  to  the  church  of  Pergamos, 
"  Thou  dwellest  where  the  throne  of  Satan,"  «>.,  the 
temple  of  Rome  and  Augustus,  "  is  "  (ii.  13).! 

But  on  the  whole  surprisingly  little  space  or  attention  is 

*  Neumann  (p.  15)  infers  unjustifiably  that  Antipas  was  the  only 
martyr  that  had  as  yet  suffered  at  Pergamos. 

t  We  may  note  in  passing  that  this  phrase  belongs  rather  to  the 
first  century  than  the  second.  In  the  first  century  the  supremacy 
of  Pergamos  in  the  Imperial  cultus  is  certain  or  highly  probable ; 
but  in  the  second  century  it  would  rather  appear  that  Ephesus 
succeeded  to  its  place,  and  became  the  most  important  seat  of 
the  worship. 


298         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

given  in  these  messages  to  the  subject  of  persecution,  and 
this  same  character  attaches  to  all  letters  addressed  to 
the  early  churches.*  Incidental  allusions  occur  to  the 
sufferings,  but  other  subjects  are  more  important  to  the 
writers.  If  the  early  Christians  had  given  much  thought 
to  their  persecutions,  they  would  not  have  conquered  the 
world. 

The  date  of  the  Apocalypse,  and  the  question  whether 
it  is  a  product  of  Jewish  or  of  purely  Christian  feeling, 
have  been  much  debated.  The  hypothesis  has  even  been 
advanced  by  Vischer  and  others  that  the  Apocalypse  was 
originally  composed  about  A.D.  70,  as  a  pure  Jewish  and 
non-Christian  work,  which  was  enlarged  and  retouched 
about  A.D.  95,  so  as  to  become  a  Christian  work.  But  this 
extreme  hypothesis  can  certainly  not  be  adopted.  The 
Christian  character  is  so  imbedded  in  the  structure  of  the 
Apocalypse  that  it  cannot  be  taken  out  of  it  even  in 
the  most  superficial  way,  except  by  such  gross  violence 
as  is  unworthy  of  sound  criticism.  The  experiment  has 
been  made  by  Vischer  ;  and  his  work  has  the  great  value 
of  showing  conclusively  that  the  thing  is  impossible.  The 
Apocalypse  is  a  Christian  document  from  its  inception  to 
its  completion. 

This  does  not,  however,  imply  that  John,  in  composing 
the  Revelation,  made  no  use  of  already  existing  Apocalypses. 
Vischer's  investigation  has  shown  conclusively  that  John 
was  greatly  influenced  by  older  Jewish  works  of  this 
character ;  though  he  errs  in  regard  to  the  manner  in 
which  John  used  them.     The  Revelation,  as  we  have   it, 

*  Except,  of  course,  on  the  supposition  that  i  Peter  was  written 
before  official  action  became  regular.  In  that  case  surprisingly  much 
space  and  attention  are  devoted  to  the  subject  in  that  Epistle. 


XII I.    Azithorities  for  the  Flavian  Period.    299 

is  not  a  revised  edition  of  a  Jewish  document.  It  is  the 
work  of  a  Christian  writer,  who  was  familiar  with  Jewish 
Apocalypses,  and  adapted  to  his  own  purposes  much  that 
was  contained  in  some  one  or  more  of  them  ;  but  this  writer 
treated  the  material  with  a  mastery  and  freedom  that  made 
his  work  in  its  entirety  a  Christian  document,  however 
strong  are  the  traces  of  the  older  form  in  parts  of  it. 

Spitta,  in  his  Offenbarung  des  Johannes,  has  justly 
appreciated  the  erroneous  side  of  Vischer's  hypothesis. 
He  considers  that  John's  Apocalypse  was  at  first  com- 
posed as  an  independent  Christian  document  about 
A.D.  60,  and  that  this  Christian  Apocalypse  was  enlarged 
by  a  redactor,  who  incorporated  along  with  it  two  Jewish 
Apocalypses,  one  composed  about  B.C.  65,  the  other  about 
A.D.  40.  The  redactor  made  considerable  additions  of  his 
own  to  effect  a  harmonious  junction  between  the  fragments 
of  these  three  works.  This  theory,  while  avoiding  the 
difficulties  into  which  Vischer  fell,  is  involved  in  others 
even  more  serious.  Its  artificiality  is  so  extreme  as  to 
make  it  incapable  of  proof  and  on  the  face  of  it  improbable, 
since  Spitta  has  not  succeeded  in  finding  any  sufficiently 
clear  marks  to  distinguish  one  document  from  another. 
The  separation  between  the  work  of  the  two  supposed 
Christian  writers  is  especially  hazardous  and  hypercritical. 

According  to  Spitta,  the  last  two  chapters  are  a  patch- 
work of  fragments  from  all  four  sources.  Yet  this  patch- 
work has  always  been  considered  to  be  one  of  the  most 
poetic  and  highly  wrought  passages  in  the  Bible.  A 
patchwork  which  rises  to  that  rank  is  no  mere  piecing 
together  of  fragments  ;  it  is  an  original  work,  in  which 
ideas  learned  from  various  sources  are  fused  into  a  truly 
original  production. 


300         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Spitta's  theory,  however,  is  at  least  a  strong  confirmation 
of  the  arguments  which  we  have  advanced  against  Vischer 's 
theory  in  its  actual  form ;  and  we  are  in  agreement  with 
much  that  is  contained  in  each  of  them,  while  considering 
that  both  require  considerable  modification. 

But  the  decisive  argument  against  the  actual  form  of 
Spitta's  theory  is  that  the  supposed  first  Christian  document 
is  quite  unsuitable  to  the  year  60.  It  is  most  improbable 
that  the  Christians  of  Asia  were  at  that  date  so  highly 
organised  in  numerous  congregations  as  they  were  when 
the  letters  to  the  seven  churches  were  composed  ;  and  it 
is  contrary  to  all  evidence  that  they  were  at  that  time 
exposed  to  serious  persecution  and  actual  execution. 
Spltta  supposes  (p.  477)  that  the  churches  of  Asia  were 
persecuted  even  to  death  by  the  Jews,  and  compelled  to 
take  the  yoke  of  the  law  upon  them ;  and  he  shows  that, 
in  the  message  sent  to  the  churches,  Jesus  does  not  threaten 
the  Jews  with  judgment,  but  encourages  His  faithful  people 
to  resist  to  death.  The  idea  that  in  great  cities  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  some  of  them  the  residence  of  high  Roman 
officials,  Ephesus,  Pergamos,  Smyrna,  etc.,  the  Jews  could 
persecute  and  kill  the  Christians  in  the  public  and  open 
way  that  is  implied  in  the  Apocalypse,  does  not  require 
serious  refutation.  We  need  only  recommend  Dr.  Spitta 
to  devote  a  little  more  time  to  the  study  of  Roman 
Imperial  history  and  administration,  in  order  to  learn  that, 
defective  as  was  the  Roman  Empire  in  some  respects,  it 
was  not  so  utterly  unfit  for  the  fundamental  duties  of 
government,  as  to  allow  the  extreme  license  and  organised 
riot  that  are  implied  by  his  theory. 

But,  even  if  the  hypothesis  be  true,  that  the  Apocalypse  is 
the  re-edition  issued  about  90-96  A.D.  of  an  older  work  or 


XI I L    Authorities  for  the  Flavian  Pe}iod.    301 

works,  whether  composed  by  Jews  or  by  Jewish  Christians, 
it  still  continues  authoritative  for  the  later  period. 

If  the  Apocalypse  was  originally  a  Christian  document, 
there  can  remain  no  doubt  that  the  preceding  exposition 
forces  us  to  date  it  not  earlier  than  about  A.D.  90.*  The 
external  circumstances  in  which  it  is  environed  are  those 
which  characterise  the  fully  developed  policy  of  the  Flavian 
Emperors,  and  are  different  from  those  of  the  Neronian 
period.  It  looks  back,  unlike  i  Peter,  over  a  period  of 
persecution.  As  a  Christian  document,  the  Apocalypse 
is  an  historical  impossibility  about  A.D.  70.  The  Church 
did  not  at  that  time  stand  opposed  to  the  Empire  and 
"  the  World "  in  declared  inexpiable  war ;  the  idea  that 
Christianity  might  spread  peaceably  through  the  Empire 
was  still  dominant,  as  we  see  both  in  the  Epistles  of 
Paul  t  and  in  i  Peter.  Accordingly,  if  the  Apocalypse 
is  placed  under  Nero  or  Vespasian,  the  feeling  that  rules 
in  it  could  be  attributed  only  to  the  Jewish  hatred  against 
the  Empire,  which  led  to  the  rebellion  of  67-70  ;  and  then 
it  must  lose  the  Christian  character  which  we  find  to  be 
inherent  in  it.  Moreover,  the  circumstances  and  details 
are  not  in  accordance  with  Jewish  feeling.  We  must 
agree  with  Volter  that  these  imply  "  a  persecution  which 
leads  to  imprisonment  and  death  "  ;  %  and  no  such  relation 
existed  between  the  Jews  and  the  Empire. 

•  The  earliest  authority  extant — viz.,  Irenaeus — dates  it  in  the 
later  years  of  Uomitian,  i.e.,  90-96. 

t  His  earlier  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians  do  not  show  this 
character;  but  in  the  later  Epistles  there  is  a  distinct  progress 
towards  it,  until  it  becomes  strongly  marked  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles. 

X  Streiischrift  gegen  Harnack  und  Vtscher,  p.  34.  "  Es  ist 
vielmehr  eine  Verfolgung  (cf.  xii.  12)  gemeint,  die  zu  Gefangniss 
und  Tod  fuhrt  (xiii.  9,  10,  15)." 


302        The   Church  in  ihe  Roman  E7npire. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Apocalypse  is  equally  an 
historical  impossibility  much  after  the  year  112,  when 
Trajan  revised  and  toned  down  the  harshness  of  the 
previous  policy,*  modifying  it  in  execution  without  abro- 
gating it  in  principle.  As  we  shall  see,  there  then  began 
a  gradual  rapprochement  between  the  Church  and  the 
Empire,  and  the  idea  that  rules  in  the  Epistles  of  Paul 
and  Peter  again  became  dominant  in  a  much  more 
advanced  and  defined  form. 

One  marked  development  in  the  procedure  against  the 
Christians  seems  to  have  taken  place  between  the  com- 
position of  I  Peter  and  that  of  the  Apocalypse.  The 
worship  of  the  Emperor  is  not  alluded  to  in  the  former, 
whereas  it  is  prominent  in  the  latter.  Precisely  in  the 
interval  between  them  lies  the  accession  of  Domitian, 
and,  as  we  have  seen,  it  was  his  desire  to  be  regarded  as 
a  god  in  human  form,  and  to  be  styled  dominus  et  deus. 
We  shall  probably  not  err  in  attributing  to  his  influence 
the  final  development  of  procedure  in  regard  to  the 
Christians. 

5.  The  First  Epistle  of  John. 

From  the  Apocalypse  we  naturally  turn  to  the  Epistles 
attributed  to  St.  John.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  same 
hand  can  be  traced  in  the  First  Epistle  and  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  No  two  works  in  the  whole  range  of  literature  show 
clearer  signs  of  the  genius  of  one  writer,  and  no  other  pair 

Volter's  words,  "  nur  bei  Christen  erklart  sich  das  und  auch 
bei  ihnen  nur  in  der  Zeit  seit  Trajan,"  are  half  right  and  half  wrong. 
The  error  is  founded  on  the  strange  misinterpretation  of  the  two 
letters  of  Pliny  and  Trajan,  which  prevails  so  widely,  and  which 
Neumann  has  happily  abandoned. 


XIII.    AutJiorities  for  the  Flavian  Pe^'iod.     303 

of  works  are  so  completely  in  a  class  by  themselves,  apart 
from  the  work  of  their  own  and  of  every  other  time.  One 
work  alone  stands  near  them,  the  Apocalypse  ;  and  while 
identity  of  authorship  is  very  far  from  being  so  clear,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  Gospel  and  Epistle,  yet  there  is  a  closer 
relation  between  the  three  works  than  exists  between  any 
of  them  and  any  fourth  work.  We  must  expect  to  find 
a  close  connection  in  time  and  circumstances  of  origin 
between  the  First  Epistle  and  the  Apocalypse. 

The  First  Epistle  of  John  was  in  all  probability  "addressed 
primarily  to  the  circle  of  Asiatic  Churches,  of  which  Ephesus 
was  the  centre."*  It  may  be  expected  to  contain  some 
reference  to  the  persecution  of  the  Christians  by  Domitian. 
No  explicit  reference,  however,  occurs ;  and  it  has  even 
been  concluded  that  the  situation  was  entirely  different 
"  Outward  dangers  were  overcome.  The  world  was  indeed 
perilous  ;  but  it  was  rather  by  its  seductions  than  by  its 
hostility.  There  is  no  trace  of  any  recent  or  impending 
persecution."  f  Therefore,  it  may  be  argued,  either  they 
belong  to  a  later  date,  or  they  prove  that  the  author  knew 
of  no  such  persecution  in  Asia  as  we  have  found  ourselves 
obliged  to  suppose. 

We  answer  that  even  the  attribution  to  a  later  date  does 
not  explain  the  attitude  of  the  writer  in  respect  of  the 
relations  with  the  Empire,  unless  we  bring  him  down  to  a 
decidedly  later  date  than  the  most  extreme  critics  advocate. 
Throughout  the  second  century,  as  will  be  shown  in  the 
following  chapters,  Christianity  continued  to  be  forbidden, 
and  the  confession  of  the  Name  on  trial  constituted  at  once, 


•  Westcott,  Epistles  of  St.  John,  p.  -^z, 
t  Westcott,  p.  33. 


304         The  Church  i7i  the  Roman  Empire. 

without  any  further  proceedings,  a  sufficient  ground  for 
condemnation  to  death.  A  writer  who  was  advising  and 
admonishing  any  congregation  during  the  second  century 
must,  if  he  referred  at  all  to  their  relations  with  the  State, 
refer  to  the  proscription  of  the  Church  ;  and  if  he  could 
admonish  the  congregation  at  that  time  without  referring 
to  their  relations  with  the  State,  he  might  equally  well  do  so 
during  the  first  century.  Herein  then  lies  the  real  explana- 
tion. The  author  has  no  thought  to  spend  on  the  relation 
of  his  congregations  to  the  Empire  and  the  law,  his  mind  is 
entirely  occupied  with  another  subject — viz.,  the  inner  life  ; 
and  he  has  no  thought  of  advising  them  as  to  their  be- 
haviour towards  the  State. 

But,  though  he  does  not  allude  to  persecution,  he  does 
not  leave  us  in  the  dark  as  to  the  feeling  with  which  ho 
regarded  the  State.  The  State  is  summed  up  in  "  The 
World."  As  Bishop  Westcott  says,  "  In  the  Emperor  the 
World  *  found  a  personal  embodiment  and  claimed  Divine 
honour."  Accordingly,  when  St.  John  says,  "  Marvel  not, 
brethren,  that  f  the  World  hateth  you,"  and  goes  on  to 
state  that  the  passage  from  the  World  to  Christianity  is  a 
passage  from  death  to  life,  and  from  hatred  of  the  Church 
to  love  of  the  Church,  we  shall  see  in  the  paragraph  iii, 
13  ff.,  first,  what  was  the  attitude  of  the  Empire  towards 
the  Church  90-100  A.D. ;  and  secondly,  how  little  thought 
St.  John  bestowed  on  it.  The  transcendentalism  of  his 
thought,  and  the  remoteness  of  his  position  from  that  of 

*  E;pistles  of  St.  John,  p.  255.  I  have  slightly  modified  his 
phrase  (which  is  "  the  world  ")  for  the  sake  of  uniformity. 

t  I  have  modified  the  translation  to  bring  out  clearly  that  the 
hatred  is  assumed  as  a  fact;  a  literal  rendering  of  d  in  English  is 
apt  to  conceal  this. 


XIII.    Authorities  for  the  Flavian  Period.    305 

the  practical  preacher  who  tells  his  congregation  how  they 
are  to  behave  in  the  presence  of  the  persecutor,  cannot  be 
better  expressed  than  in  the  words  of  Westcott  himself, 
p.  34  :  "  According  to  his  view,  .  .  .  the  World  [including 
the  "  Empire  "]  exists  indeed,  but  more  as  a  semblance  than 
as  a  reality.  It  is  overcome  finally  and  for  ever.  It  is  on 
the  point  of  vanishing.  .  .  .  And  over  against  '  the  World  ' 
there  is  the  Church.  ...  By  this,  therefore,  all  that  need 
be  done  to  proclaim  the  Gospel  to  those  without,  is  done 
naturally  and  effectively  in  virtue  of  its  very  existence.  It 
must  overcome  the  darkness  by  shining.  ...  St.  Paul  wrote 
while  the  conflict  was  undecided.  St.  John  has  seen  its 
close."  *  Fully  to  appreciate  the  writer  whose  attitude  is 
described  in  these  words,  and  to  realise  his  perfect  in- 
difference to,  and  want  of  concern  with,  the  superficial 
aspect  of  the  facts  of  the  day,  we  must  remember  that  he 
was  writing  under  Domitian,  who  banished  him  to  an  islet 
in  the  i4igean  Sea,  and  who  was  addressed  by  his  subjects 
as  "  our  Lord  and  God."  When  we  do  so,  this  paragraph, 
written  to  explain  why  missionary  work  is  not  urged  by 
John  as  it  was  by  Paul,  also  explains  why  the  enmity  of 
the  Empire  is  treated  so  lightly,  and  occupies  a  hardly 
appreciable  place  in  his  mind. 

We  now  see  that  the  attitude  of  the  Epistles  to  the 
Empire  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  Apocalypse  ;  and  we 
also  realise  that  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  argue,  from  the 
absence  of  any  explicit  reference  in  them  to  persecution, 
that  they  were  composed  in  a  season  of  peace,  when 
persecution  was   at   an   end.     Any   apparent  discrepancy 

•  I  would  only  add  to  this  last  sentence,  "  with  the  eye  ot  a  seer," 
Epistles  of  SL  John,  p.  34.  I  have,  as  before,  made  the  change 
of  a  capital  in  "  the  World." 

20 


3o6         TJlc  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

between  the  Epistles  and  the  Apocalypse,  in  reference  to 
the  relations  of  Church  and  State,  lies  in  the  difference  of 
their  point  of  view.  In  the  words  we  have  just  quoted,  the 
first  Epistle  sees  the  World  "  only  as  a  semblance,  finally 
overcome,  and  on  the  point  of  vanishing."  The  Apocalypse 
explains  how  this  is  so,  by  the  vision  of  the  Divine 
scheme  of  things,  in  which  the  World,  the  persecutor,  is 
conquered  and  evanescent,  while  permanence  and  reality 
belong  only  to  the  Church  which  the  World  has  vainly 
tried  to  destroy  In  this  vision  the  Empire  and  its 
action  towards  the  Church  must  be  expressly  described. 
But  neither  in  the  Apocalypse  nor  in  the  Epistle  is  it 
described  with  the  intention  of  advising  Christians  as  to 
their  behaviour  in  the  face  of  persecution.  The  writer  is 
always  remote  from  that  point  of  view,  and  on  a  higher 
plane  of  thought. 

6.  Hebrews  and  Barnabas. 

The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  throws  little  light  on  the 
relation  between  the  State  and  the  Church,  nor  does  this 
subject  throw  much  light  on  that  enigmatic  work.  The 
persons  addressed  have  been  exposed  to  taunts  and  afflic- 
tions (x.  33),  and  have  endured  a  great  conflict.  Yet  the 
general  tone,  perhaps,  implies  that  worse  and  more  serious 
trials  have  been  experienced  by  Christians  elsewhere,  and 
that  the  persons  addressed  may  expect  a  more  terrible 
trial  in  the  immediate  future.  The  whole  spirit  of  the 
advice  given  them  seems  to  be  directed  to  prepare  them  for 
serious  persecution,  and  therefore  the  writer  must  already  be 
familiar  with  persecution  of  that  type. 

By  the  language  of  xii.  4  this  impression  is  confirmed. 
The  persons  addressed  were  up  to  the  present  not  sufferers 


XIII.    Authorities  for  the  Flavian  Period.    307 

of  persecution  that  had  been  carried  as  far  as  death.* 
But  the  example  of  the  heroes  and  heroines  of  old,  who  by 
faith  were  enabled  to  resist  death  and  extreme  torments,  is 
urged  upon  them  at  such  length,  and  with  such  earnestness, 
as  to  show  that  the  writer  considers  them  to  be  threatened 
by  a  similar  fate. 

This  summary  practically  assumes  the  point,  and  dis- 
regards the  difficulty.  It  gives  far  too  much  definiteness  to 
what  is  expressed  in  fainter  outlines  and  in  a  less  precise 
way.  But,  if  it  at  all  correctly  represents  the  tone  of 
the  Epistle,  the  date  of  composition  appears  to  be  about 
64-66.  But,  first,  there  is  in  the  Epistle  an  absence  of 
expressions  which  are  specially  and  obviously  appropriate 
to  the  character  of  the  Neronian  trials  ;  and,  secondly,  a 
certain  poverty  of  meaning  is  on  this  supposition  attributed 
to  x.  33  (6vei,8cafioi<;  re  Kal  ffkiy^ecfiv  OeaTpi^ofievoi),  which  may 
however  be  in  keeping  with  the  rather  rhetorical  style  of 
this  writer.  Yet  no  other  date  suits  better,  for  there  is  an 
equal  absence  of  expressions  that  would  be  suitable  if  the 
letter  were  composed  at  some  critical  period  of  later  history 
— e.^-.,  under  Domitian.  Moreover,  it  is  probably  easier  to 
understand  the  want  of  definiteness  in  the  writer's  attitude 
towards  the  State,  if  he  belonged  to  an  earlier  period. 
Perhaps  the  reason  for  this  difficulty  of  fitting  the  letter 
to  any  special  date  lies  in  its  style,  which  is  further  away 
from  the  realities  of  life,  and  more  rhetorical  and  abstract 
than  the  letters  of  St.  Paul. 

The  Epistle  of  Barnabas  is  assigned  by  Weizsacker  and 
Lightfoot  to  the  reign  of  Vespasian.     The  date  is  reckoned 

•  The  sense  which  Wordsworth,  for  example,  gets  from  this  verse 
by  pressing  the  force  of  the  aorist  seems  to  me  quite  unacceptable, 
for  it  is  not  consistent  with  oCna. 


3o8         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

by  them  from  the  passage  in  which  Daniel  is  quoted  :  "  Ten 
kingdoms  shall  reign  upon  the  earth,  and  after  them  shall 
rise  up  a  little  horn,  who  shall  lay  low  three  of  the  kings  in 
one."  The  writer  quoted  this  to  prove  that  the  last  day 
was  approaching,  for  this  sign  was  in  actual  fulfilment  when 
he  was  writing.  Weizsacker  and  Lightfoot  differ  in  the 
details  of  their  explanation,  and  the  latter  certainly  is  more 
satisfactory.  In  one  respect  they  seem  both  to  miss  the 
truth.  Both  say  that  Vespasian  is  the  tenth  king — i.e.,  the 
tenth  Roman  Emperor  ;  but  they  differ  about  the  three 
kings  that  are  laid  low  by  the  little  horn.  Weizsacker  finds 
them  in  Galba,  Otho,  and  Vitellius,  overthrown  by  Ves- 
pasian. The  objections  to  this  are  obvious.  Vespasian  is 
made  to  do  double  duty,  as  one  of  the  ten  kings,  and  also 
as  the  little  horn ;  moreover,  Vespasian  did  not  in  any 
sense  lay  low  Galba,  but  vindicated  his  memory.  Light- 
foot  explains  the  little  horn  as  the  returning  Nero,  who  was 
expected  to  destroy  the  three  Flavii,  Vespasian,  Titus,  and 
Domitian,  conceived  to  reign  together  as  Augustus  and  two 
Cassars.  In  this  explanation  a  difficulty  suggests  itself.  It 
is  clearly  implied  that  the  three  who  are  to  be  destroyed  at 
a  blow  are  all  included  in  the  ten,  whereas  on  this  ex- 
planation an  eleventh  and  twelfth,  viz.,  Titus  and  Domitian, 
have  to  be  added  to  make  up  the  three.  But  little  change 
is  needed.  We  have  only  to  bear  in  mind  that,  in  the  time 
of  Vespasian,  Otho  and  Vitellius  were  not  regarded  as 
Emperors,  for  Vespasian  claimed  to  succeed  Galba  directly, 
and  to  avenge  his  death  on  the  two  usurpers.*  Vespasian 
therefore  was  the  eighth,  Titus  the  ninth,  and  Domitian  the 

*  It  was  a  later  idea  to  reckon  Vitellius  and  Otho  among  the 
twelve  Caesars.  To  do  so  in  the  time  of  the  Flavian  Emperors  would 
have  been  treason. 


XIII.    Authorities  for  the  Flavian  Period.     309 

tenth  king  ;  and  three  kings  reigning  together  between  70 
and  79  were  according  to  widespread  belief  destined  all  to 
perish  together  at  the  hands  of  the  expected  Nero.  This 
remarkable  situation  fulfilled  the  sign  of  the  prophet 
Daniel,  and  portended  the  approaching  end  of  the  world ; 
and  this  part  of  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  was  therefore 
written  under  Vespasian. 

The  subject  of  the  Epistle  gives  little  or  no  occasion 
for  alluding  to  the  relation  of  the  Christians  to  the  State. 
Only  in  the  concluding  part,  "  the  Two  Ways,"  is  there  any 
opening  for  such  allusion ;  and  here  we  find  little  or 
nothing  bearing  on  the  subject,  except  the  advice  to  "  be 
subject  to  masters  as  the  image  of  God  "  (§  19).  The  im- 
pression here  given  is  that  the  writer,  like  Paul  and  Peter, 
insists  on  the  strict  observance  of  the  actually  existing 
laws.  The  Christians  are  not  to  give  any  countenance  to 
changes  of  the  established  order ;  they  are  to  accept  the 
present  situation,  and  to  remember  that  their  own  world  is 
a  different  one. 

7.  The  Epistle  of  Clement. 

The  evidence  of  Clement,  in  the  letter  to  the  Corinthian 
Church,  written,  perhaps,  about  A.D.  97,*  is  very  important. 
After  quoting  from  ancient  Jewish  history  various  ex- 
amples of  the  evils  wrought  by  jealousy,  he  proceeds  : — 

"  But  let  us  come  to  those  champions  who  lived  very 
near  to  our  time.  Let  us  set  before  us  the  noble  examples 
which    belong   to   our   generation."     He   quotes  at   some 

*  Lightfoot  argues  convincingly  that  Clement  wrote  under  Nerva, 
*•»  P-  352  ;  but  elsewhere  he  regularly  speaks  of  the  E;pistle  as 
composed  in  the  latter  years  of  Domitian. 


310         The  Chwch  in  the  Roman  Empire. 


length  the  sufferings  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul ;  and  he 
then  proceeds  :  "  Unto  these  men  of  holy  lives  was  gathered 
a  vast  multitude  of  the  elect."  The  idea  of  two  distinct 
and  isolated  persecutions  is  forced  upon  these  words  in 
accordance  with  the  tradition  of  the  second  century,  which 
mentions  only  two  great  persecutors,  Nero  and  Domitian.* 
But  Clement  is  most  naturally  understood  as  referring  to 
a  continuous  persecution  throughout  his  own  generation, 
keener  perhaps  at  one  time  than  at  others. 

It  appears  probable  that  after  the  death  of  Domitian, 
as  after  the  persecution  of  Nero,  there  was  a  temporary 
cessation  of  a  policy  which  had  been  carried  to  an 
extreme.  There  was  in  each  case  a  certain  revulsion  of 
feeling,  which  is  expressly  attested  in  the  earlier  case  by 
Tacitus,  and  which  may  be  inferred  in  the  second  case  both 
from  Clement's  expression  "  the  sudden  and  repeated 
calamities  and  reverses  which  befel  us,"t  and  from  the 
statement  of  Dion  that  Nerva  dismissed  those  who  were 
awaiting  their  trial  on  the  charge  of  sacrilege.  Hence 
Clement  was  apparently  writing  during  a  lull  in  the  storm 
of  persecution  ;  while  it  was  at  its  height,  he  had  no  time 
to  attend  to  the  reports  which  reached  him  about  the 
Corinthian  church.  But  Clement  knows  well  that  the 
present  is  only  a  momentary  lull ;  he  says  in  §  6  that  "  we 
are  in  the  same  lists  [with  those  who  have  been  slain],  and 
the  same  contest  awaiteth  us." 

*  Lightfoot,  though  on  the  whole  he  takes  this  view,  remarks 
about  the  "  vast  multitude  of  the  elect,"  that  "  the  reference  must  be 
chiefly,  though  not  solely,  to  the  sufferers  in  the  Neronian  persecution." 

t  Lightfoot  translates  as  if  the  text  were  yH/o/xtvas,  but  in  the  text 
he  reads  yevoixivas,  which  alone  has  MS.  authority,  and  which  he 
expressly  prefers,  i.,  p.  352,  ii.,  p.  8,  although  the  Syriac  translation 
has  a  present 


XIII.    Authorities  for  the  Flavian  Period.    3 1 1 

Clement  has  been  interpreted*  as  implying  that  there 
had  never  been  a  persecution  at  Corinth :  "  a  profound 
and  rich  peace  had  been  given  to  all."  But  the  context 
shows  that  here  the  thought  in  the  writer's  mind  is  not  of 
persecutions.  He  is  speaking  of  that  peace  and  freedom 
from  dissensions  which  formerly  characterised  the  Church 
of  Corinth,  but  which  characterised  it  no  longer, 

8.  The  Letters  of  Ignatius. 

One  other  work  remains,  which  throws  much  light  on 
the  spirit  of  this  time,  but  it  is  a  work  whose  date  and 
authenticity  are  more  keenly  contested  than  those  of  any 
other  in  Christian  literature.  The  letters  of  Ignatius  have 
certainly  formed  a  subject  for  forgery  to  work  upon 
on  an  extraordinary  scale.  But,  after  Lightfoot's  argu- 
ments, it  is  clear  that  the  supposition  of  a  forgery  in  the 
case  of  the  seven  central  documents  entails  the  belief  that 
a  tale  coherent,  probable  in  itself,  and  yet  unusual  in  some 
points,  was  constructed  as  a  basis,  that  the  letters  are 
written  on  this  foundation,  and,  without  ever  formally 
referring  to  the  incidents  of  this  tale,  pre-suppose  them  as 
having  actually  occurred  ;  that  this  tale  disappeared  from 
memory ;  that  it  was  flatly  contradicted  by  a  later  forger, 
who  remodelled  the  original  forgery,  and  also  by  all  tra- 
dition ;  and  that  it  remained  for  scholars  in  recent  years, 
and  especially  for  Lightfoot,  to  disentangle  this  tale  from 
the  obscure  language  of  the  genuine  letters,  and  thus  enable 
us  to  comprehend  the  skill  of  the  most  skilful  forger  known 
in  history.     He  that  is  not  prepared  to  admit  all  this  is 

•  By  Gebhardt  and  Hamack,  in  Prolegometia  to  their  edition  of 
element,  p.  Ivii. 


312         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

bound  to  admit  the  genuineness  of  what  Lightfoot  calls 
the  Middle  Recension. 

Strange  to  say,  it  is  not  possible  to  prove  from  the 
actual  words  of  Ignatius  that  a  general  persecution  was 
going  on  at  the  time.  The  situation  in  which  he  was 
placed  made  any  such  allusion  unnecessary.  No  exhorta- 
tion to  face  persecution  could  strengthen  the  effect  of  his 
mere  example.  In  his  letter  to  the  Romans,  §  5,  Ignatius 
refers  to  previous  cases  in  which  the  beasts  had  "  refused 
through  fear  to  touch"  martyrs  exposed  to  them.  The 
passage  does  not,  indeed,  explicitly  mention  that  the  vic- 
tims were  Christians  ;  but  it  is  natural  and  probable  that  he 
should  refer  to  martyrs.  This  shrinking  of  the  beasts  from 
human  beings  is  often  referred  to  in  the  best  and  most 
authentic  Acts  of  Martyrs ;  and  M.  Le  Blant  has  dis- 
cussed the  subject  with  his  usual  learning  and  critical 
sense.*  But  if  we  except  this  letter,  no  direct  reference 
to  persecution  occurs ;  though  there  is  a  general  implication 
that  Ignatius  is  suffering  the  common  lot  of  Christians. 
His  attention  is  almost  exclusively  devoted  in  the  other 
six  letters  to  the  affairs  and  the  future  of  the  churches  to 
whom  he  writes.  But  even  where  he  makes  no  express 
reference  to  it,  Ignatius  leaves  the  feeling  in  the  reider's 
mind  that  persecution  and  suffering  are  general. 

A  subtle  difference  exists,  in  respect  of  our  subject, 
between  the  two  groups  of  letters,  the  four  written  from 
Smyrna,  and  the  three  from  Troas.f  In  the  latter  nothing 
occurs  for  our  purpose  ;    the  former  abound   in   delicate 

•  Actes  des  Martyrs,  p.  86  and  95 ;  see  below,  p.  404. 

t  Incidentally  we  may  notice  this  difference  in  thought  as  a  proof 
of  genuineness  :  it  implies  a  difference  of  situation,  such  as  is  inex- 
plicable on  the  theory  of  forgery. 


XIII.    Authorities  for  the  Flavian  Period.    313 

phrases,  the  most  explicit  of  which  may  be  quoted.  The 
life  of  the  Christian  is  a  life  of  suffering,  the  climax  of 
his  life  and  the  crowning  honour  of  which  he  gradually 
makes  himself  worthy  is  martyrdom,  and  Ignatius  is  far 
from  confident  that  he  is  worthy  of  it  {Trail. ^  4).  Suffering 
and  persecution  are  the  education  of  the  Christian,*  and 
through  them  he  becomes  a  true  disciple  {Ephes.,  3 ; 
Magn.,  8,  9).  The  teacher,  then,  is  the  person  or  church 
which  has  gone  through  most  suffering,  and  shown  true 
discipleship  ;  and  Ignatius  distinguishes  Ephesus  and  Rome 
as  his  teachers  {Ephes.,  3  ;  Rotn.,  3).  Ignatius  is  still  in 
danger,  not  having  as  yet  completely  proved  his  steadfast- 
ness, whereas  Ephesus  is  proved  and  firmly  fixed,  the 
implication  being  that  it  has  been  specially  distinguished 
by  the  number  of  its  martyrs  {Ephes.,  12);  and,  moreover, 
Ephesus  has  been  the  highway  of  martyrs,  the  chief  city  of 
the  province  where  many,  even  from  other  parts,  appeared 
before  the  proconsul  for  trial,  and  at  the  same  time  the  port 
whence  they  were  sent  to  Rome  (see  p.  318).  A  detailed 
comparison  is  made  in  Magn.,  8,  9,  between  the  prop?  ets 
and  the  Christians  of  the  age.  The  prophets  were  pc  ;se- 
cuted,  and  the  Christians  endure  patiently  in  ordei  to 
become  true  disciples.  When  such  is  the  principle  of  the 
Christian  life,  that  suffering  is  the  best  training,  it  is  the 
devil's  teaching  to  make  any  compromise  with  the  wvirld, 
and  to  ask  pardon  for  one  who  has  been  condemne<f',  as 
the  State  would  express  it,  or  promoted  to  the  crowning 
glory,  as  the  Church  should  consider  it  {Trail.,  4). 

The  impression  which  had  been  produced  by  persecution 


*  He  repeats  in  a  new  sense  the  principle  of  ^schylus,  tc  suffer 
is  to  learn,  Agam.,  170,  and  often. 


314         1^^^^  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

on  the  feeling  of  the  Christians  towards  the  Empire  is  very 
strongly  marked  in  the  letters  of  Ignatius.  Outside  of 
the  Apocalypse  the  irreconcilable  opposition  between  the 
State  and  Christianity  is  nowhere  more  strongly  expressed 
than  in  them  ;  and  there  runs  throughout  both  groups  of 
writings  the  same  identification  of  the  State  with  the 
World,*  and  the  same  rejection  of  the  slightest  compromise 
with  the  World.  The  same  magnificent  audacity  towards 
the  State,  the  same  refusal  to  accept  what  seemed  to  men 
to  be  the  plain  facts  of  the  situation,!  the  same  perfect 
assurance  of  victory  characterise  both.  In  both  the  point 
of  view  is  that  the  Church  is  the  powerful  party,  and  that 
the  State  is  the  criminal.  The  Church  must  act  with  the 
strong  hand,  not  with  gentle  persuasion,  in  its  dealings 
with  the  State.J  Christians  must  not  speak  of  Christ  and 
desire  the  World.  §  The  opposition  between  the  Church 
and  the  World  is  of  course  a  commonplace  of  Christianity, 
and  in  itself  would  be  no  indication  of  the  period  to 
which  the  letters  of  Ignatius  belong ;  but  it  would  be 
difficult  to  find  at  any  time,  except  90-112,  a  form  so 
extreme  as  the  thought  reaches  in  Ignatius.  He  considers 
that  even  the  slight  recognition  of  the  State,  which  is 
implied  in  asking  for  clemency  to  a  condemned  Christian, 

*  I  do  not  mean  that  in  these  documents  the  World  means  the 
State,  and  nothing  else  :  the  State  is  the  most  definite,  concrete,  and 
pressing  form  in  which  all  that  is  implied  in  the  phrase  "the  World" 
faces  and  opposes  the  Christians.  The  point  of  view  in  Ignatius 
and  John  is  that  the  State  is  wholly  summed  up  in  "the  World," 
that  it  is  absolutely  and  exclusively  bad,  and  opposed  to  the  Church. 

t  oxi^lv  (f)aiv6ntvov  KoXov. — Rom.^  3. 

X  oil  TTfUTixovris  TO  epyov  aXKa  fieyedovs  iariv  6  xpL(TTiavi(T{ios,  orav  fiKTTJTai 
VTTO  Koafiov. — Rom.,  3. 

§  [i.r\  XuXeTre  'lijcrovv  Xpiarov  Kocrpov  8e  eVt^u/xetre. — RoM.^  "Jm 


XIII.    Authorities  for  the  Flavian  Period.    3 1 5 

is  treason  to  religion,  and  an  unworthy  compliance  with 
the  temptations  of  the  World. 

The  character  and  the  thought  of  the  letters  of  Ignatius, 
then,  are  those  of  a  person  whose  mind  had  been  formed 
in  the  period  of  the  Flavian  persecution,  amid  the  same 
circumstances  which  led  to  the  writing  of  the  Apocalypse  ; . 
but  at  the  same  time  there  are  some  subtle  indications  that 
the  feeling  of  Ignatius  was,  in  this  respect,  not  entirely 
shared  by  the  Church.  The  Church  in  Rome,  in  spite  of 
its  glorious  past  history,  is,  as  Ignatius  hints  {Rom.,  2), 
disposed  to  seek  favour  with  men,  and  to  gain  influence  at 
the  expense  of  compromise  with  the  world.  The  obscure 
paragraph  in  Trail.,  4,  seems  to  be  a  reply  to  a  hope 
expressed  by  the  Trallians  through  their  messenger-bishop, 
that  a  person  so  important  and  distinguished  as  Ignatius 
might,  after  all,  be  spared  to  the  Church  through  the  exer- 
tions of  the  influential  Romans.*  Moreover,  Ignatius  seems 
always  to  feel  it  necessary  to  explain  his  attitude  in  respect 
to  martyrdom,  and  to  justify  it.  Hence  arises  the  violence 
of  expression  which  has  offended  many  readers  ;  for  a  man 
is  sometimes  apt  to  compensate  by  strength  of  expression 
for  weakness  of  reasoning,  and  Ignatius  felt  that  the 
reasoning  which  we  hypothetically  attribute  to  the  Trallians 
might  be  generally  considered  truer  than  his  own.  The 
very  influence  attributed  to  the  Roman  Church  indicates 
a  time  when  the  policy  of  the  State  was  not  so  uncom- 
promisingly hostile  as  we  suppose  it  to  have  been  before 
A.D.  112.  If  we  were  asked  to  specify  the  period  which  is 
best  suited  by  these  indications,  we  should  have  to  name 

•  This  expression  may  have  suggested  the  composition  of  the 
immediately  following  letter  to  the  Romans  (see  Lightfoot,  ii.,  p.  186). 
I  assume  that  the  order  of  the  letters  in  Eusebius  is  chronological. 


3i6         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

the  conclusion  of  Trajan's  reign  or  the  earlier  years  of 
Hadrian's.  We  observe  also  that  the  Church  in  Antioch 
got  peace  from  persecution  soon  after  Ignatius  was  taken 
away  ;  *  and  he  heard  this  news  at  Troas.  This  indicates 
a  sporadic,  rather  than  a  settled  action  ;  and  takes  us  into 
the  period  of  concession. 

The  opinion  with  regard  to  the  letters  of  Ignatius  which 
has  been  advocated  by  Dr.  Harnack  is  hardly  consistent 
with  this  view.  He  quite  admits  the  genuineness  of  the 
letters,  but  considers  that  there  is  no  trustworthy  evidence 
for  dating  Ignatius'  martyrdom  in  the  reign  of  Trajan  ; 
he  therefore  places  the  journey  to  Rome  and  the  com- 
position of  the  letters  about  130-40.1  It  seems,  however, 
improbable,  if  Ignatius  had  written  so  late,  that  his  tone 
should  be  so  different  from  that  of  the  Apology  of  Aris- 
tides,  and  so  like  that  of  the  Apocalypse.  The  tone  that 
was  roused  by  the  Flavian  persecution  might  naturally 
continue  for  some  years  after  the  relaxation  of  its  severity 
by  Trajan  about  112;  but  it  is  difficult  to  admit  that 
letters  composed  about  135  should  be  unaffected  by  the 
new  spirit,  of  which  Hadrian  was  the  most  thorough 
exponent.  If  the  evidence  of  our  ancient  authorities  with 
regard  to  the  date  of  Ignatius  pointed  to  the  later  date, 
we  should  have  to  accept  it,  and  modify  the  view  which 
is  expressed   in  these  and   the  following  chapters.      But 


*  On  this  subject  also  there  is  a  distinction  between  the  letters 
from  Smyrna  and  those  from  the  Troad  :  cp.  Philad.,  10 ;  Smyrna,  11 ; 
Folyc,  7;  Ephes.,  21 ;  Magn.,  14 ;  Trail.,  13  ;  Rom.,  9. 

t  The  possible  confusion  between  the  successive  Emperors  Nerva 
Trajan  and  Trajan  Hadrian  (according  to  their  official  names)  has 
been  appealed  to  as  favouring  the  substitution  of  Trajan  for  Hadrian 
in  tradition.  See  Harnack  in  Theolog.  Literature,  1891,  col.  304^  ; 
he  quotes  the  analogous  case  of  the  Apology  of  Aristides. 


XIII.    Authorities  for  the  Flavian  Period.    3 1 7 

the  evidence,  though  (as  Dr.  Harnack  has  shown)  it  is 
scanty  and  inconclusive,  points  to  the  same  date  which  our 
view  of  the  relations  between  Church  and  State  indicates 
as  most  natural  ;  and  therefore  we  adhere  to  the  tradition, 
and  date  the  letters  not  later  than  Trajan,  and  preferably 
between  112  and  117. 

Ignatius  is  the  only  individual  Christian  who  is  de- 
scribed as  having  been  sent  for  public  exhibition  in  the 
amphitheatre  at  Rome.  But  it  is  a  well-attested  fact  that 
criminals  were  often  utilised  in  this  way ;  and  the  con- 
demned Christians  were  treated  by  the  Government  in 
the  same  way  as  other  criminals.  The  wider  popularity 
of  sports,  both  shows  of  wild  beasts  (venationes)  with  other 
exhibitions  of  the  Roman  style,  and  athletic  contests  in 
the  Greek  style,  was  one  of  many  results  of  the  spread  of 
Graeco-Roman  civilisation  in  the  Eastern  provinces  during 
the  second  century.  It  is  therefore  probable  that,  in  the 
age  of  the  Antonines,  criminals  in  the  Eastern  provinces 
were,  with  growing  frequency,  reserved  for  sports  at  home. 
There  even  grew  up  a  custom  among  provincial  governors 
of  obliging  one  another  in  case  of  need  with  a  gift  of 
criminals  for  exhibition  in  the  hunting  scenes  of  the  amphi- 
theatre; and  this  custom  had  to  be  formally  prohibited 
by  a  rescript  of  Scverus  and  Caracalla  198-209  A.D.  But 
in  the  time  of  Domitian  and  Trajan  the  case  was  different ; 
such  criminals  were  not  much  needed  in  the  Eastern  pro- 
vinces, while  they  were  in  great  request  in  Rome.* 

The  enormous  scale  of  the  exhibitions  in  the  Flavian 
amphitheatre,  which  is  commonly  known  as  the  Colisseum, 

*  Provincial  governors  were  strictly  forbidden  from  releasing 
criminals  who  had  been  condemned  to  the  beasts,  as  a  concession 
to  the  populace.     Digest,  48,  19,  31. 


3i8        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire, 

was  probably  the  reason  why  this  practice  became  so 
common  at  that  time.  The  building  was  dedicated  in 
A.D.  80,  and  Martial's  earliest  extant  work,  the  Liber 
Spectaculorum,  describes  some  of  the  more  remarkable 
sights  which  were  shown  on  the  occasion.  The  reign  of 
Trajan  was  also  distinguished  for  the  great  scale  of  these 
disgusting  exhibitions,  which  were  a  recognised  part  of  the 
means  employed  by  the  Imperial  policy  for  amusing  and 
instructing  the  people  under  its  fatherly  care  (Lft,  i.  354). 

But  though  Ignatius  is  the  only  individual  case  which  is 
known  to  us,  the  evidence  of  the  Apocalypse,  as  explained 
by  Mommsen,  is  clear  that  this  practice  was  a  common  one 
in  the  case  of  Christians  ;  and  we  have  one  passing  reference 
to  it  in  a  hitherto  unexplained  expression  used  by  Ignatius 
in  writing  to  the  Church  at  Ephesus  :  "  Ye  are  a  high  road 
of  them  that  are  on  their  way  to  die  unto  God."  *  Ephesus 
was  the  chief  port  for  the  trade  from  the  interior  of  Asia 
Minor,  the  leading  city  of  Asia,  and  the  place  where  the 
Roman  governor  was  by  regulation  obliged  to  enter  the 
province.  Ignatius  himself  did  not  pass  through  it ;  but 
the  road  by  which  he  travelled  was  apparently  an  unusual 
one,  due  to  some  special  circumstances.  In  ordinary 
circumstances,  probably,  he  would  have  been  sent  from 
Syria  by  sea  direct  to  Italy ;  but  he  was  conducted 
over  land  by  Philadelphia,  Smyrna,  Troas,  and  Philippi 
to  Romcf     Ephesus  is  the  sea-end  of  the  road  along  which 


*  Trdpobos  (CTTe  rmv  els  Qeov  dvaipovfievav, — Kphes.,  12. 

t  It  is  needless  to  conjecture,  with  Zahn  {Ign.  v.  Ant.,  p.  253,  with 
whom  Lightfoot  is  half  disposed  to  agree,  i.,  p.  362,  ii.,  p.  211), 
that  Ignatius  sailed  from  Seleuceia  to  a  Cilician  or  Pamphylian 
harbour,  (i)  The  natural  route  to  Philadelphia  is  by  the  Syrian 
and  Cilician  Gates  ;  and,  unless  there  is  evidence  for  an  unusual 
route,  we  must  suppose  that  the  regular  road  was  followed.    (2)  The 


XIII.    Authorities  for  the  Flavian  Period.    319 

most  of  the  criminals  sent  to  Rome  from  the  province  of 
Asia  would  be  led,  and  at  Ephesus  they  would  find  ships 
to  take  them  to  Ostia.* 

words  of  Eusebius,  H.  E.,  iii.  36,  more  naturally  sut^gest  the  land 
route,  whatever  be  the  value  of  his  evidence.  (3)  The  words  in 
Rom.,  5,  "by  land  and  sea,"  are  rightly  explained  by  Lightfoot,  ii., 
p.  211,  as  referring  to  the  entire  journey. 

•  The  expression  which  Ignatius  uses  about  Ephesus  is  similar 
to  that  which  Clement  uses  of  Corinth,  §  i  :  rls  yap  napfmbrjfjifia-as 
npos  vfias  ttju  vpuv  .  .  .  niariv  ovk  iboKifiaaev  ;  on  this  passage  Light- 
foot  remarks  in  his  commentary:  "  Corinth  was  a  natural  halting- 
place  on  the  journey  between  Rome  and  the  East";  and  in  §  10 
and  §  35  he  alludes  to  the  frequent  occasion  which  the  Church  at 
Corinth  had,  to  show  hospitality  to  travellers. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  POLICY  OF  HADRIAN,  PIUS,  AND  MARCUS. 

I.  Hadrian,  August  iith,  117,  to  July  ioth,  138,  a.d. 

'  I  ^HE  most  important  evidence  about  Hadrian's  attitude 
-^  towards  the  Christians  is  his  rescript  addressed  to 
Minucius  Fundanus,  who  was  proconsul  of  Asia  about 
A.D.  124,  a  few  years  after  Tacitus  had  filled  the  same 
office,  and  about  twelve  years  after  Trajan's  rescript  to 
Pliny  had  been  issued.  A  word  is  needed  on  the  question 
whether  this  important  document  is  genuine.  The  ex- 
ternal evidence  is,  as  Lightfoot  says,  "  exceptionally  strong  : " 
it  was  quoted  in  full  by  Justin  Martyr  in  his  first  Apology, 
addressed  about  A.D.  140  to  Antoninus  Pius,  and  was 
mentioned  by  Melito  in  his  Apology  addressed  to  Marcus 
Aurelius  about  thirty  years  later.  Such  evidence,  of 
course,  cannot  be  disbelieved,  if  the  genuineness  of  the 
documents  is  admitted.  But  some  modern  critics,  such  as 
Keim,  Aube,  Lipsius,  Overbeck,  who  have  adopted  a  false 
view  of  the  relations  between  the  Church  and  the  Empire, 
find  that  the  rescript  is  very  inconvenient  for  them.  It  is 
too  clear  and  explicit  to  be  misinterpreted  in  the  way  that 
they  have  misinterpreted  Pliny's  report  and  Trajan's  rescript 
and  it  is  irreconcilable  with  their  view.  Accordingly  they 
declare  that  it  must  be  a  forgery.  Justin  refers  to  it  only 
in  the  last  chapter  of  his  Apology,  and  this  can  easily  be 

cut  off.     Hence  for  no  reason  except  to  save  a  hasty  theory 

320 


XIV.    Policy  of  Hadrian,  Pitts,  and  Marcus.  321 

from  being  still-born,  the  last  chapter  of  the  Apology  is 
pronounced  spurious.  It  would  be  difficult  to  surpass  the 
childishness  of  the  argument  against  the  genuineness  of 
the  conclusion  of  Justin's  Apology,  but  Keim  surpasses  it 
in  his  discussion  of  Melito's  reference  to  the  rescript.  This 
reference  cannot  be  eliminated  from  Melito's  Apology, 
nor  can  the  Apology  be  pronounced  spurious.  The  only- 
resource,  therefore,  is  to  consider  that  the  rescript  had  been 
forged  before  Melito  wrote,  and  was  accepted  by  him  as 
genuine.  Now  after  Keim  has  cut  away  from  Justin  the 
chapter  where  the  rescript  is  quoted,  he  finds,  of  course, 
that  Justin  does  not  refer  to  the  rescript.  Accordingly 
he  argues  that,  as  Justin  knows  nothing  about  Imperial 
letters,  whereas  Melito  quotes  the  letter  to  Fundanus, 
the  letter  must  have  been  forged  in  the  interval*  It  is 
really  adding  insult  to  injury,  first  to  deprive  Justin  of  his 
chapter  appealing  to  the  rescript,  and  then  to  quote  him  as 
a  proof  that  the  rescript  had  not  yet  come  into  existence. 
Justin  does  not  quote  Trajan's  letter  to  Pliny,  therefore  it 
also  must,  by  parity  of  reasoning,  be  spurious  ;  and  we  can 
date  its  origin  as  accurately  as  the  origin  of  Hadrian's 
letter.  Athenagoras,  about  177,  did  not  know  of  Trajan's 
letter,  whereas  Tertullian  quotes  it  in  his  Apology  about 
197  ;  therefore  it  had  been  forged  in  the  interval.  How 
easy  it  is  on  this  principle  to  prove  and  date  the  forgery  of 
every  ancient  document ! 

The  result  of  the  polemic  against  the  rescript  is  to  bring 

*  "  Als Entstehungszeit wird man  die  Jahre  von der Justin' sche7i 
A'pologie,welcher  keine  Kaiserbriefe  kenntund  ein  Hauptmotiv  ztir 
Entstehung  derselben  hot,  bis  zum  Beginn  des  aureV schen  Ver- 
folgungssturmes  {Friihjahr,  177)  ansehen  diirfen,  et-uoa  160-176, 
amehestendochdasjahr,  176." — Yij^vm,  Aus  dem  Urchrist,"^.  183. 

2; 


32  2         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire, 

out  more  clearly  its  inconsistency  with  the  views  advocated 
by  Keim,  Aube,  etc.,  as  to  the  relations  of  the  Church  to 
the  Empire,  and  to  relieve  us  from  the  necessity  of  discuss- 
ing them.  With  regard  to  the  perfect  conformity  of  the 
rescript  with  the  general  history  of  the  time,  a  very  strong 
opinion  has  been  pronounced  by  Mommsen,  who  says  * 
that  "  the  groundless  suspicions  cast  on  the  genuineness  of 
this  document  are  the  best  proof  how  little  capable  recent 
writers  are  of  understanding  the  attitude  in  which  the 
Roman  Government  stood  to  the  Christians."  Lightfoot's 
remark  of  older  date  f  is  in  full  agreement  with  the  opinion 
of  the  great  historian  :  "  not  only  is  this  rescript  no  stumb- 
ling-block when  confronted  with  the  history  of  the  times. 
Some  such  action  on  the  part  of  the  5^mperor  is  required 
to  explain  this  history.  .  .  .  Short  of  actually  rescinding 
the  policy  which  made  the  profession  of  Christianity  a 
crime,  there  must  have  been  a  vast  amount  of  legal 
discouragement." 

This  rescript  is  on  the  same  lines  as  that  of  Trajan, 
but  goes  beyond  it  in  several  points, 

(i)  Its  intention  is  defined  as  being  to  prevent  innocent 
persons  from  being  harassed  and  false  accusers  from  being 
allowed  free  scope. 

(2)  The  provincials  may  indeed  prosecute  their  suit  against 
Christians  before  the  tribunal  of  the  governors,  but  they 
must  bring  forward  evidence,  and  not  confine  themselves  to 
petitions  and  shouting,  "  Away  with  the  Christians  ! " 

(3)  Proof  is  required  that  the  Christians  have  offended 
against  the  law. 


*  His  tor.  Zft.,  xxviii.,  p.  420. 

t  Ignatius,  i.,  p.  462  (478,  ed.  ii.). 


XIV.   Policy  of  Hadrian,  Pitts,  and  Marcus.    323 

(4)  If  the  prosecutor  fails  to  make  good  his  case,  he  must 
be  punished  as  a  false  accuser. 

There  is  in  this  rescript  a  studied  vagueness  in  regard  to 
the  crimes  of  which  proof  is  required.  It  is  not  expressly 
admitted,  as  it  was  by  Trajan,  that  the  Name  is  a  crime  ; 
on  the  other  hand,  that  established  principle  is  not  rescinded. 
As  to  the  offence  against  the  law  which  must  be  proved 
against  the  Christians,  it  is  quite  open  to  any  governor  to 
consider  that  the  Name  is  an  offence  ;  but  it  would  also  be 
quite  possible  for  him  to  infer  from  the  rescript  that  some 
more  definite  crime  must  be  proved.  With  this  uncertainty 
facing  him,  the  accuser  might  well  dread  failure  and  the 
consequent  penalty.  Everything  would  depend  on  the 
personal  character  of  the  judge  ;  and  we  can  quite  under- 
stand how  one  governor  might  readily  find  the  case  proved 
when  the  accused  acknowledged  the  Name,  whereas  another 
might  point  out  to  the  accused  how  they  could  answer 
the  questions  in  such  a  way  as  to  escape  all  penalty 
without  violating  their  religion.* 

*  This  is  said  to  have  been  done  by  Cincius  Severus.  (See  Ter- 
tuUian,  ad  Scap.,  iv.)  He  was,  perhaps,  proconsul  of  Africa  between 
180  and  190.  (See  Tissot,  Pastes  de  Prov.  Afr.)  An  example  may 
be  given  of  the  methods  which  Cincius  Severus  might  suggest  to  the 
Christians.  The  oath  ;per  geniunt  Ccesaris  was  forbidden  to 
Christians,  and  was  not  used  by  them ;  but  the  oath  per  salutent 
Ccesaris  was  lawful  for  them,  and  was  a  proper  and  widely  recognised 
form  among  the  pagans.  A  governor  who  was  friendly  towards  the 
Christians  might  accept  a  solemn  oath  per  salutem  imperatoris 
or  imperatorum  as  a  sufficient  guarantee  of  loyalty,  and  might  enter 
in  his  records  (Plin.,  ad  Traj.,  96,  4;  Digest.,  48,  17,  i,  2)  that  the 
accused  person  had  complied  with  the  test  of  loyalty,  and  shown 
due  respect  to  the  cultus  of  the  emperors,  while  an  unfriendly 
governor  might  demand  a  more  satisfactory  proof  of  loyalty.  Ter- 
tuUian  approves  of  the  oath  per  salutem,  ApoL,  §  t^z,  sed  etjuramus 
sicut  non  per  genios  Ccesarum,  ita  per  saltttetn  eorum.     (The 


324        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

The  Emperor  himself,  the  Olympian  god  who  roamed 
over  the  Empire,  looking  into  every  religion,  initiated  into 
various  mysteries,  was  quite  alive  to  the  fact  that  the 
State  religion  was  a  sham,  and,  looked  at  as  a  religion,  a 
failure  ;  but  he  knew  also  that  it  was  the  keystone  of  the 
Imperial  policy,  and  he  could  not  or  would  not  face  the 
task  of  altering  it.  He  leaves  the  religious  question  quite 
open,  and  lets  the  rival  sects  fight  it  out  for  him  to  watch. 
In  this  ordinance  about  a  religion  he  never  alludes  to  the 
idea  of  religion.  No  other  person  could  have  written  such 
a  rescript ;  and  without  any  evidence  we  might  have 
identified  it  as  Hadrian's.  That  a  Christian  should  have 
forged  such  a  document  without  introducing  some  reference 
to  religion  is  most  improbable  ;  and  had  the  idea  not  been 
maintained  by  such  distinguished  scholars  as  Keim,  Lipsius, 
Overbeck,  etc.,  we  might  have  been  tempted  to  use  stronger 
language. 

Such  action  as  that  of  Hadrian's  was,  of  course,  quite 
illogical,  and  could  not  continue  as  a  permanent  policy. 
The  rescript  was  a  sarcasm,  and  none  knew  this  better  than 
Hadrian  himself  But  sarcasm  is  not  government,  and  the 
Empire  had  to  be  governed. 

The  rescript  left  to  Hadrian's  successors  a  difficult 
problem  in  their  relations  with  the  Christians.  It  did  not 
settle  any  principle  ;  and  one  of  the  most  important  clauses 
in  it  was  susceptible  of  very  various  interpretations.  The 
most  certain  points  in  it  were  that  Trajan's  prohibition  of 
seeking  out   the  Christians  was   confirmed,  and  that  the 

A^ologeticum  was  written  in  197  A.D.,  when  two  Caesars  were  reign- 
ing.) Dio  Cassius,  xliv.,  50,  says,  01  r^v  rt  iyUtav  rfjv  re  tvxt]V 
a>fivva-av.  Numerous  inscriptions  show  how  common  was  the  formula 
iirep  aarrjpias  tov  AvTOKpdropos. 


XIV.   Policy  of  Hadrian,  Pius,  and  Marcus.    325 

prosecutor  who  failed  to  make  out  his  case  was  to  be 
punished  for  false  accusation  {calunmid).  But  still  the 
settled  principle  remained  in  operation,  that  any  Christian 
might  be  ordered  to  execution  at  any  time  by  any  governor 
of  a  province.  The  most  important  effect  of  such  acts  as 
those  of  Trajan  and  Hadrian  was  to  require  some  definite 
person,  willing  to  take  on  himself  the  invidious  character 
of  accuser  (which  had  hitherto  been  almost  equivalent  to 
murderer)  of  some  definite  person. 

There  are  many  indications  that  various  circumstances 
might  originate  a  short  and  temporary  enforcement  of  the 
general  law  and  practice.  But  apart  from  this,  in  the  period 
on  which  we  are  now  engaged,  the  Christians  must  have 
been,  to  a  considerable  extent,  protected  against  accusers 
by  their  own  strength  and  union.  The  professional  accuser 
{delator),  though  necessitated  and  encouraged  by  the 
Roman  laws,*  was  always  highly  unpopular.!  Even  in  our 
own  country  a  private  prosecutor  has  always  to  face  a  certain 
prepossession  against  him,  which  can  be  overcome  only  by 
a  complete  proof  of  the  justice  of  his  plea.  But  in  the 
Mediterranean  lands  there  is  a  much  stronger  feeling,  for 
law  and  police  are  tacitly  regarded  as  enemies  to  the  in- 
dividual citizen  to  an  extent  that  we  can  hardly  under- 
stand, at  least  after  we  have  ceased  to  be  boys  at  school  ; 
and  the  same  feeling  existed  in  ancient  times.  Occasionally 
revenge  produced  a  delator;  but  usually  an  accuser  was 
actuated  by  hopes  of  gain.  In  free  Rome  of  the  Republic, 
political  advancement  was  sometimes  the  inducement ; 
but  generally   the  actual  rewards  in   money  or   position, 

•  There  was  no  public  accuser,  and  many  laws  were  inoperative 
unless  private  initiative  set  them  in  motion, 
t  Compare  Horace,  Sai.  I.,  4,  66. 


326         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

promised  in  several  individual  laws  to  successful  prose- 
cutors, elicited  dclatores.  In  the  case  of  prosecutions  on 
the  charge  of  Christianity,  no  such  rewards  were  to  be 
obtained  ;  the  delator  would  not  win  permanent  approval 
even  from  those  who  hated  the  Christians,  and  who  might 
encourage  him  at  the  moment.  An  isolated  accuser 
would  have  much  to  lose,  and  could,  in  general,  have 
little  chance  of  gaining  anything.  Finally,  the  hatred  of 
a  united  and  energetic  body  like  the  Christians  would, 
in  itself,  be  a  serious  penalty,  and,  in  places  where  Chris- 
tianity was  very  strong,  might  be  a  sufficient  deterrent  to 
any  single  prosecutor.  The  hatred  which  was  popularly 
entertained  for  the  Christians  during  the  century  following 
64  A.D.  was  too  intense  not  to  contain  a  considerable  element 
of  fear.  In  modern  history,  the  Judenhass  and  Judenhetze 
are  strongest  where  the  Jews  are  thought  dangerous. 

An  example  of  the  strong  feeling  entertained  by  the 
Christians  against  any  who  had  been  instrumental  in 
procuring  the  condemnation  of  Christians,  is  found  in  the 
action  taken  in  A.D.  320  against  those  who,  in  the  great 
persecution  by  Diocletian  and  Maximian,  had  played  the 
part  of  informers  or  accusers,  or  had  delivered  up  to  de- 
struction copies  of  the  sacred  books  {traditores). 

How  then  were  accusers  found  in  the  face  of  such 
deterrent  motives  ?  In  the  first  place,  from  disturbance  of 
trade.  This  is  a  subject  on  which  we  have  very  little 
information  ;  but  that  trade  was  highly  developed  and  very 
influential  in  the  Asiatic  societies  is  obvious.  We  have 
already  referred  to  the  strike  of  the  bakers  in  Magnesia 
(p.  200),  which  produced  such  serious  consequences  as  to 
require  the  intervention  of  the  proconsul.  The  circum- 
stances which  led  to  the  outbreak  of  persecutions  in  the 


XIV.   Policy  of  Hadrian,  Pius,  and  Marcus.  327 

second  century  are  almost  wholly  unknown  to  us,  and  no 
case  in  point  later  than  the  hypothetical  one  of  112  (which 
has  been  already  alluded  to)  is  known  ;  yet  it  is  highly 
probable  that  combined  action  of  a  whole  trade  was 
occasionally  instrumental  in  prompting  the  action  of  the 
Government  against  the  Christians. 

In  the  second  place,  motives  of  a  personal  nature,  such  as 
revenge,  might  occasionally  induce  individuals  to  face  the 
odium  and  appear  as  delatores.  An  example  of  this  occurs 
in  the  case  of  Ptolemaeus,  who  was  prosecuted  before  the 
prefect  of  the  city,  Lollius  Urbicus,  about  152.* 

But  the  great  danger  lay  in  popular  excitement  produced 
by  some  sudden  cause,  some  general  calamity,  or  signs, 
prodigies,  and  prophecies,  which  either  made  the  multitude 
by  a  unanimous  impulse  act  as  accuser,  or  raised  individuals 
beyond  the  influence  of  motives  which,  in  saner  moments 
would  weigh  with  them.  As  Tertullian  puts  it :  "  If  the 
Tiber  rises,  if  the  Nile  does  not  rise,  if  the  heavens  give 
no  rain,  if  there  is  an  earthquake,  famine,  or  pestilence, 
straightway  the  cry  is,  *  The  Christians  to  the  lions ! '"  f 

Hence  we  see  how  strong  Hadrian's  rescript  was,  for  it 
expressly  forbade  the  shouts  of  a  crowd  to  be  received  as  an 
accusation,  and  required  some  definite  individual  to  appear 
and  to  take  the  risk  of  punishment  if  he  failed  to  prove  his 
case. 

That  proceedings  against  the  Christians  were  not  quite 
discontinued  under  Hadrian  must  be  taken  as  certain.  The 
general  principle  of  proscription  had  not  been  abrogated, 

*  SeeBorghesi,(15'«z/rfj,  ix.,  295;  y«i-//«,  ii.  ^/o/(9^.,  2.  Lightfoot, 
Jgnat.  i.  p.  509,  gives  the  date  155-160,  after  Borghesi,  viii.  545;  but 
in  the  later  vol.  (1884)  Borghesi  inclines  to  an  earlier  date. 

t  Analog.,  40. 


328         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

and  the  evidence  as  to  this  and  the  following  reigns  is 
clear,  Lightfoot  is  on  this  point  not  so  accurate  and  logical 
as  he  generally  is  *  except  in  his  concluding  phrase,  that 
our  knowledge  is  too  scanty  to  permit  the  inference  that 
no  prosecutions  of  Christians  took  place  under  Hadrian. 
But  when  he  disposes  of  all  the  Acta  which  assign  martyr- 
doms to  this  reign,  on  the  ground  that  "  the  reign  of  Hadrian 
was  a  convenient  receptacle  for  these  real  or  supposed 
martyrdoms  which  were  without  a  date,"  it  is  impossible  to 
follow  him.  The  reign  of  Domitian,  who  in  all  later  time 
was  one  of  the  typical  persecutors,  was  equally  convenient, 
and  was  comparatively  empty  ;  so  also  was  the  reign  of 
Trajan.  There  occur  under  Hadrian  more  martyrdoms 
about  which  detailed  Acta  are  preserved,  than  under 
Domitian  or  Trajan ;  but  the  reason  is  that  Hadrian 
was  later,  and  nearer  the  time  when  Christian  historians 
flourished.  More  actual  names  of  individuals  were  remem- 
bered under  his  reign ;  but  even  in  their  case,  hardly 
anything  of  perfectly  authentic  character  is  preserved. 
The  Acta  are  fabulous,  or  nearly  so ;  but  that  does  not 
warrant  the  rejection  of  the  tradition  as  unhistorical,  or  the 
assertion  that  martyrs  attested  by  the  older  martyrologies 
are  purely  fictitious  (pp.  405 «,  434i'0. 

Nor  can  we  accept  Lightfoot's  explanation  that  here 
"  misinterpretation  of  Eusebius'  words  "  by  Jerome  origin- 
ated the  belief  in  a  persecution  under  Hadrian.  Eusebius' 
statement  is  that  Quadratus  composed  his  Apology  because 
"  certain  wicked  men  were  endeavouring  to  molest  our 
people  "  ;  and  Lightfoot  holds  that  "  the  implication  is  that 
they  were  thwarted  in  their  endeavours."     This  seems  too 

*  Jgnat.  and  Pol. ,  i.,  p.  507. 


XIV.    Policy  of  Hadrian^  Pitis,  and  Afarcus.   329 

strong  an  inference.  Quadratus,  a  private  citizen  in 
Athens,  could  become  aware  of  such  endeavours  only 
through  their  resulting  in  action.  Hadrian  did  not  hold 
a  public  discussion  as  to  his  policy,  but  the  Christians, 
finding  that  he  was  disposed  to  relax  in  some  degree  the 
severity  of  the  standing  policy,  and  hoping  that  he  would 
listen  to  argument,  began  to  defend  their  cause  in  formal 
Apologies.  That  Euscbius  knew  few  facts  regarding 
H-adrian's  action  is  certain  ;  but  his  comparative  ignorance 
was  due  to  the  dearth  of  authorities.  The  Apology  of 
Aristides  is  itself  the  best  proof  that  a  defence  and  a 
protest  against  the  accepted  policy  were  thought  necessary 
by  the  Christians.*  But  after  all  deductions  are  made,  the 
fact  remains  that  the  lot  of  the  Christians  in  this  reign 
must  have  been  comparatively  a  happy  one  after  their 
experiences  before  A.D.  112. 

Rescripts  such  as  that  addressed  by  Hadrian  to  Fundanus 
were  secret  and  confidential  documents.  We  learn  the 
exact  terms  of  some,  in  whole  or  in  part,  in  ways  not 
contemplated  by  the  writers,  and  quite  apart  from  their 
nature.  Trajan's  was  published — of  course  with  the 
Emperor's  permission — in  the  collected  correspondence  that 
passed  between  him  and  Pliny  ;  and  many  fragments  of 
others  are  quoted  in  the  law  books,  and  thus  preserved  to 
us.  Hadrian's  was  quoted  by  Justin  Martyr  about  twenty 
years  or  less  after  it  was  written.  How  had  it  become 
known  to  the  Christians  ?  This  is  a  point  of  some 
interest,  but  an  answer  cannot  be  given  with  certainty. 
Possibly  Hadrian  himself  may  have  intentionally  allowed 

*  The  view  of  Professor  Rendel  Harris  is  that  Aristides  addressed, 
not  Hadrian,  but  the  succeeding  Emperor  Hadrianus  Antoninus, 
in  the  beginning  of  his  reign. 


330        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

it  to  be  brought  to  their  knowledge.  But,  so  far  as  I  can 
judge,  it  is  more  probable  that  its  terms  became  known  to 
them  through  their  influence  in  the  province  of  Asia  and 
in  the  bureau  {pfficiuin)  of  the  proconsul.  That  suppo- 
sition is  quite  in  accordance  with  the  general  impression  we 
receive,  that  the  new  religion  was  very  widespread  and 
influential  in  this  and  the  neighbouring  provinces  before  the 
middle  of  the  second  century.  We  find  an  example  which 
has  some  bearing  on  this  point  in  the  case  of  Florinus,  who 
was  listening  to  Polycarp's  lectures  in  Smyrna  along  with 
Irenaeus,  while  he  was  attending  the  Imperial  court  and 
enjoying  high  favour  there.  The  exact  date  and  the 
precise  circumstances  are  as  yet  a  matter  of  conjecture.  In 
the  great  uncertainty  about  Irenaeus'  birth  and  early  life 
the  facts  may  belong  to  any  time  between  135  and  150. 
But  it  is  quite  probable  that  an  inscription  may  any  day 
be  found  giving  a  clue  to  the  circumstances  and  time  when 
an  imperial  visit,  otherwise  unknown  to  us,  was  made  to 
Asia  during  this  period.* 

It  is  of  course  possible  that  the  Christians  bought  a  copy 
of  the  rescript.  Many  instances  are  recorded  in  which 
they  purchased  from  the  clerks  {commentar lenses)  copies 
of  the  official  shorthand  report  of  the  proceedings  at  trials 
of  martyrs,  and  these  official  Acta  form  the  groundwork  of 
many  of  the  tales  of  martyrs,  and  are  even  reproduced 
verbatim  in  some  of  the  best  and  most  authentic  accounts.f 
The  rescript  would  certainly  be  preserved  in  the  proconsular 
archives  of  the  province  of  Asia.| 

*  This  is  a  fair  example  how  much  may  reasonably  be  expected 
from  the  progress  of  investigation  and  discovery. 

t  Le  Blant,  Actes  des  Martyrs,  pp.  65  and  70. 

\  A  rchivum  proconsulis  is  the  phrase  used  by  St  Augiistin  in  refer- 
ence to  Africa  {contra  Cresconium,  iii.  80  (70),  Le  Blant,  pp.  63-4. 


XIV.   Policy  of  Hadrian,  Phis,  and  Marcus.    331 

2.  Antoninus  Pius,  July   ioth,  138,  to 
March  7TH,  a.d.  161. 

The  more  liberal  procedure  of  Trajan  and  Hadrian  was, 
on  the  whole,  maintained  in  this  reign.  The  general  tone 
of  the  rescript  to  Fundanus  seems  to  have  characterised 
the  letters  addressed  by  Antoninus  Pius  to  several  cities  of 
Greece  and  Thrace,  forbidding  disorderly  procedure  against 
the  Christians.*  These  letters  confirmed  the  section  in 
Hadrian's  rescript,  ordering  that  mere  tumultuous  shouting 
should  not  be  taken  as  a  formal  accusation  of  the  Christians. 
They  required  that  the  proper  procedure  before  the 
governors  of  the  provinces  should  be  observed,  and  for- 
bade any  riotous  action  on  the  part  of  the  populace.  In 
this  very  restriction,  however,  it  is  implied  that  the  regular 
formal  procedure  was  still  maintained,  and  was,  in  the  opinion 
of  the  Emperor,  fully  adequate  to  the  requirements  of  the 
case.  As  to  the  facts  which  occasioned  these  letters,  we 
may  assume  with  some  confidence  that  tumultuous  action, 
similar  to  that  which  took  place  at  Smyrna  in  A.D.  155 
against  Polycarp,  had  occurred  in  various  other  cities  about 
the  same  time ;  and  the  Emperor  wrote  to  the  Athenians, 
Larissaeans,  Thcssalonians,  and  the  Greek  cities  in  general,! 

•  The  reasoning  of  Neumann  (p.  28),  Overbeck  (^Studien  zur 
Geschichte,  etc.,  p.  146  ff.),  and  others,  about  these  letters  is  vitiated 
by  their  wrong  interpretation  of  the  phrase  \j.T]hkv  vtarepl^eiv.  This 
does  not  indicate  "  innovations,"  as  they  understand  it,  but  riotous 
and  tumultuous  action.  In  the  Latin  original  novcB  res  was,  no 
doubt,  the  phrase.  Lightfoot  rightly  translates  the  phrase,  Ignat., 
i.,  459.  The  letters  are  mentioned  by  Melito,  in  a  lost  Aj)olngy 
addressed  to  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  quoted  by  Eusebius,  H.  E.,  iv.,  26. 

t  Among  these  Smyrna  is  included.  The  phrase  is  not  "  cities  of 
the  province  Achaia,"  but  "all  Hellenes,"  which  includes  those  of 
the  .^gean  coast.  Compare  the  coin  on  which  the  people  of  Tralles 
claim  to  be  the  "  First  of  the  Greeks,"  see  above,  p.  157  n. 


332         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

reminding  them  of  the  actual  state  of  public  law,  and 
warning  them  against  stretching  municipal  action  too  far, 
and  encroaching  on  the  powers  of  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment (see  p.  393/").* 

The  action  of  the  citizens  of  Smyrna  was  in  direct  dis- 
obedience to  the  rescript  of  Hadrian  ;  but  the  rescript  was 
in  advance  of  public  feeling,  and  was  therefore  liable 
to  be  disregarded.  It  seems  also  clear  that  the  pro- 
consul was  a  weak  official.  This  is  shown  by  his  attitude 
towards  the  mob.  His  inclination  and  sense  of  duty  urged 
him  to  give  Polycarp  a  further  hearing  and  a  formal  trial, 
if  he  could  "  prevail  upon  the  people ; "  but  their  shouts 
impelled  him  to  order,  or  rather  to  permit,  immediate 
execution.!  We  may  suppose  that  the  passions  and  fears 
of  the  mob  were  strongly  excited  by  some  recent  great 
calamity,  for  many  events  of  that  kind  are  mentioned  in 
the  reign  of  Pius.J  In  Smyrna  a  serious  earthquake  had 
occurred  not  long  before,  A.D.  151  or  152  apparently. § 

This  series  of  outbreaks  of  popular  feeling  in  the  Greek 
cities  points  to  some  widely  spread  cause ;  and  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  following  reign  show  that  the  cause  was 

*  This  point  of  view  is  involved  in  i/ecorep/feti/  and  novce  res.  The 
precise  time  when  the  letters  to  the  cities  were  written  is  not  re- 
corded. Melito  implies  that  it  was  after  the  assumption  of  Marcus 
Aurelius  as  Caesar  in  A.D.  147  ;  and  the  reasoning  in  the  text  shows 
that  it  was  probably  soon  after  the  action  of  the  Smyrnaeans  in 
A.D.  155. 

t  See  §  10  of  the  letter  of  the  Smyrnaeans. 

X  Script.  Hist.  Aug.,  iii.,  Vit.  Anton.,  9. 

§  Lightfoot,  Ignat.  i.,  p.  461,  following  Waddington,  Pastes, 
$  141 ;  but  the  latter  gets  his  date  from  the  forged  letter  of  An- 
toninus to  the  Koinon  of  Asia,  which  he  assigns  to  A.D.  152,  whereas 
Mommsen  and  Lightfoot,  p.  483,  put  it  in  158.  Probably  the  date 
for  the  earthquake  is  pretty  accurate. 


XIV.    Policy  of  Hadrian,  Pius,  and  Marcus.   333 

a  general  revival  of  paganism  in  a  more  philosophic  and 
reasoned  form. 

A  larger  body  of  detailed  information  is  extant  about 
the  sufferings  of  individual  martyrs  under  Antoninus  Pius 
than  under  Hadrian.  Lightfoot  has  clearly  shown  this,* 
but  we  need  not  infer  that  the  Christians  really  suffered 
more.  We  are  now  coming  nearer  the  period  when  regular 
contemporary  registration  of  Christian  history  began  ;  and 
moreover,  the  extraordinary  personal  importance  of  Poly- 
carp  secured  the  preservation  of  the  facts  of  his  death. 

The  language  of  Justin  and  of  Minucius  Felix  is  con- 
clusive as  to  the  existence  of  persecution  in  this  reign. 
In  his  first  Apology  Justin  appeals  direct  to  the  Emperor 
against  the  principle  now  enforced  that  the  mere  Name  is 
a  capital  offence.  He  argues  against  it  on  the  ground  of 
justice  and  legality,  and  quotes  the  rescript  to  Fundanus  as 
a  proof  that  Hadrian  was  opposed  to  it.  He  did  not  find 
it  serve  his  purpose  to  quote  Trajan's  rescript,  which 
expressly  affirmed  the  principle  ;  and  his  silence  about  the 
rescript  is  no  argument  that  he  did  not  know  it.  The  later 
rescript  of  Hadrian  might  fairly  be  considered  as  over- 
ruling the  earlier.f  But  he  does  not  refer  to  the  actual 
seeking  out  of  Christians  as  practised  by  the  Government 
officials,  and  we  shall  see  that  in  this  respect  the  authorities 
for  the  succeeding  reign  differ  greatly  from  him. 

A    procedure   conforming   to   the   rescripts  of  Hadrian 

*  Ignat.  and  Pol.,  i.,  p.  509. 

t  I  need  not  quote  all  the  passages  in  yustin,  which  are  numerous. 
(See  Lightfoot,  Ignat.  and  Pol.,  i.,  p.  534.)  The  date  of  Minucius 
not  later  than  A.D.  160  appears  to  Lightfoot  established  by  the 
passages  quoted  by  Schwenke.  I  have  not  the  right  to  express 
any  opinion  on  the  date  of  Minucius  ;  but,  if  the  words  are  pressed 
in  that  way,  they  point  to  a  period  before  A.D.  147. 


334         ^'^^  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

and  Antoninus  was  employed  in  the  case  of  Ptolemaeus 
and  Lucius.  Neither  of  them  was  sought  out  by  the 
prefect,  Lollius  Urbicus,  but  private  accusers  came  forward 
against  the  former,  and  the  latter  offered  himself  volun- 
tarily.* The  exception  in  the  case  of  Polycarp  has  been 
shown  to  be  an  infraction  of  the  established  rule. 

A  good  example  of  the  action  which  a  Roman  official 
might  take  at  the  time  is  furnished  by  the  case  of  Pudens, 
who,  as  Neumann  has  shown,  was  probably  proconsul  of 
Cyrene  and  Crete  a  few  years  before  i66.t  He  expressly 
declared  that  he  was  forbidden  by  the  instructions 
{mandaium)  of  the  Emperor  to  investigate  the  case  of  a 
Christian,  unless  a  formal  accuser  appeared ;  and,  after 
tearing  up  the  document  of  accusation  which  was  sent 
along  with  the  prisoner,  he  dismissed  him  on  the  ground 
that  no  individual  prosecutor  had  come  forward. 

3.  Marcus  Aurelius,  March  7TH,  161,  to 
March  17TH,  180. 

The  larger  policy  of  Trajan  and  Hadrian  was  not  under- 
stood by  Marcus  Aurelius.  His  ideal  was  to  be  the  true 
Roman  ;  and  a  decided  reaction  towards  the  older  narrow 
Roman  policy  is  apparent  during  his  reign.  He  could  not 
of  course  "  stem  the  torrent  of  descending  time  "  ;  ideas 

*  Lollius  was,  according  to  Borghesi,  prcB/ectus  urbi  about  152. 
See  note,  p.  327. 

t  TertuUian,  ad  Scaf.,  iv.  The  usual  view  is  that  Pudens  was 
proconsul  of  Africa  when  the  incident  occurred ;  but  Neumann's 
reasoning  establishes  the  strong  probability  of  his  case.  If  the 
usual  view  were  correct,  Pudens'  proconsulate  would  have  to  be 
dated  under  Commodus ;  for  his  action  is  contrary  to  the  character 
of  procedure  under  Marcus,  but  similar  in  style  to  that  of  Cincius 
Severus,  which  has  been  quoted  previously  (p.  323). 


XIV.    Policy  of  Hadrian,  Pius,  and  Marcus.   335 

enlarged,  policy  widened,  and  the  conception  of  Rome 
developed  insensibly  and  inevitably.  _  But  philosophic 
leanings  now  no  longer  inclined  toward  Christianity  and 
against  the  Imperial  rule,  as  in  the  Flavian  period.  The 
Cynics  indeed  were  still  in  opposition  to  the  narrower 
policy,  and  championed  the  cosmopolitan  spirit,  which  was 
steadily  marching  towards  its  final  triumph.  But  popular 
dilettante  Greek  philosophy  was  no  longer  on  the  side  of 
the  opposition.  It  was  now  seated  on  the  throne ;  and  for 
the  time  the  Imperial  policy  coquetted  with  other  favourites, 
and  lost  sight  of  the  goal  towards  which  history  was 
moving. 

Christian  thought  was  diametrically  opposed  to  the 
Greek  ideals  of  social  life  ;  *  and  for  a  time,  while  the 
retrogressive  tendency  in  the  Imperial  policy  lasted,  a 
union  took  place  of  the  Roman  power  and  the  Greek 
philosophic  influence,  in  opposition  to  the  Christian  re 
organisation  of  society.  They  allied  themselves  with  the 
current  religions,  and  tried  to  make  explicit  in  the  cere- 
monial paganism  the  higher  ideas,  which  certainly  were 
latent  beneath  the  gross  and  detestable  exterior  of  its 
mystic  rites.  Paganism,  which  the  Imperial  policy  had 
throughout  the  first  century,  from  Augustus  to  Domitian, 
tried  in  vain  to  galvanise  into  life,  began  even  under 
Hadrian  to  feel,  under  the  stimulus  of  opposition  to 
Christianity,  the  pulse  of  returning  life.  The  mysteries 
set  before  the  initiated  a  doctrine  which  might  com- 
pete with  Christian  doctrine,  and  might  prove  that  the 
higher   truths  of  life  and  morality  had  been  stolen   from 

•  I  do  not  refer  here  to  questions  of  morality.  The  introduction 
of  the  purest  morality  into  Greek  ideals  would  have  left  them  still 
essentially  opposed  to  the  Christian  principles  of  society. 


33^         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

them  by  the  Christians.  Already  in  134  A.D.,  Hadrian 
was  greatly  interested  in  watching  the  contest  between  the 
doctrines  of  Christianity  and  the  mysticism  of  the  religion 
of  Serapis,  which  he  considered  to  be  of  much  the  same 
character  and  rank.* 

It  seems  clear  that  during  this  reign  the  active  pursuit 
of  the  Christians  became  a  marked  feature.  Celsus  in  his 
True  Word  speaks  of  them  as  being  sought  out  for  exe- 
cution.! 

The  evidence  of  the  Christian  writers  is  to  the  same  effect. 
Melito,  about  1 70-1 71,  refers  to  new  edicts,  according  to 
which  the  Christians  are  pursued.^  Such  persecution  he 
declares  to  be  unprecedented. 

It  would  also  appear,  if  Melito  can  be  trusted,  that  re- 
wards were  promised  to  informers  from  the  property  of 
the  accused ;  for  the  informers  are  said  to  be  greedy  for 
property  of  others,  and  to  spoil  the  innocent  by  day  and 
by  night. 

Athenagoras,  about  177-180,  also  refers  to  the  harassing, 
plundering,  and  persecution  of  the  Christians,  and  the  fines 
imposed  on  them  (which  are  probably  the  rewards  given  to 
informers).  He  speaks  also  in  strong  terms  about  the 
Name  being  sufficent  proof  of  guilt,  and  entailing  death.  § 

*  See  the  letter  to  Servianus,  quoted  in  Script.  Hist.  Aug.,  xxix., 
( Vita  Saturnini)  8  ;  Lightfoot,  Ignat,  and  Pol.,  \.,  p.  480. 

t  See  Origen,  c.  Celsum,  viii.,  69.  The  date  of  Celsus'  work  has 
been  the  subject  of  much  discussion,  but  it  may  be  probably  placed 
in  this  reign,  when  conjoint  Emperors  were  in  power,  either  in  161-169, 
or  177-180.  The  variation  between  the  singular  and  the  plural  in 
referring  to  the  sovereign  authority  is  characteristic  of  many  docu- 
ments of  the  period.    (See  p.  249.) 

I  Quoted  by  Eusebius,  H.  £.,  iv.,  26  :  Kaiva  boynara,  irpoarayixara. 

J  Libellus pro  Christianis,  I.  etc. 


XIV.   Policy  of  Hadrian,  Pius,  and  Marcus.  337 

Thcophilus  of  Antioch,  about  180,  also  mentions  that 
the  Christians  were  pursued  and  sought  out  in  his  time.* 

The  Acts  of  Martyrs  give  similar  evidence.  The 
governor  of  Gallia  Lugdunensis  sought  out  the  Christians 
in  177  ;  and  already  at  the  beginning  of  the  reign,  Justin 
Martyr  and  four  companions  were  brought  before  Junius 
Rusticus,  Prefect  of  the  City  in  163.  In  the  beginning 
of  the  Acta  fustini,  it  is  said  that  the  arrest  was  made  in 
accordance  with  decrees  enforcing  worship  of  idols  on 
the  part  of  the  Christians.  It  is  clearly  implied  that  the 
accused  were  sought  out  by  officers  in  consequence  of 
these  decrees,  and  were  not  formally  accused  by  any  indi- 
vidual. Having  acknowledged  their  religion,  they  are 
ordered  to  sacrifice,  and  the  order  is  repeated  with  threats 
of  severe  punishment. 

The  seeking  out  of  Christians,  then,  is  a  marked  feature 
in  all  documents  relating  to  the  time  of  Marcus  Aurelius ; 
whereas  there  is  not  a  trace  of  evidence  that  it  was  practised 
under  Antoninus  Pius,  and  it  had  been  forbidden  by 
Trajan  and  Hadrian.  Keim  has  correctly  observed  that 
it  begins  under  Marcus  Aurelius  ;  f  but  we  hold  that  this 
was  the  re-introduction  of  the  Flavian  practice,  the  only 
logical  course  when  Christianity  was  a  crime. 


*  The  word  hiinKovcn,  which  he  uses,  reminds  us  that  the  officials 
charged  with  this  duty  and  commanded  by  the  Eirenarch  were 
styled  Siwy/xtrat.  See  O.  Hirschfeld,  die  Sicker heitspolizeiim  rom. 
Kaiserreich^  p.  28  {Berl,  Sitzungsber.,  1891,  p.  872). 

t  "  Unter  M.  Aurel  kam  die  Verfolgung  des  '  Atheismus '  recht 
im  Schwung  und  unter  ihm  erst  kam  es  zur  Aufsuchung  der 
Christen." — Aus  dent  Urchrist.,  p.  99.  Justin,  in  his  first  Apology, 
written  under  Pius,  is  emphatic  about  the  Name  being  a  capital 
crime  ;  but  he  makes  no  reference  to  the  seeking  out  of  Christians 
or  to  rewards  for  accusers. 

22 


338         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

These  facts  prove  clearly  that  new  methods  were  intro- 
duced by  Marcus  Aurelius,  at  least  in  the  sense  that  pro- 
ceedings against  the  Christians  were  enforced  more  actively, 
though  the  penalties  remained  the  same.  The  question 
arises  how  this  was  brought  about.  Was  it  by  a  general 
edict  ?  Was  it  by  a  clause  inserted  in  the  general  instruc- 
tions to  governors  ?  Or  did  the  governors  merely  act  on 
the  knowledge  that  the  Emperor  was  inclined  to  act  logically 
in  respect  of  the  Christians,  and,  as  they  were  criminals 
deserving  death,  to  seek  them  out  actively  ? 

Some  expressions  occurring  in  the  documents  of  the 
period  would,  if  taken  strictly,  imply  that  an  edict  on  the 
subject  was  issued.  But  probably  they  are  simply  rather 
loose  phrases,  which  must  not  be  taken  too  strictly.  Melito, 
who  speaks  of  "  new  decrees  "  in  one  place,  uses  in  another 
the  term  "  instructions."  *  The  latter  term  is  probably  the 
right  one  ;  the  action  towards  the  Christians  was  guided  by 
the  Imperial  instructions  to  provincial  governors  {iiiandatd). 
These  instructions,  as  has  been  shown,  were  susceptible  of 
varying  interpretation,  according  to  the  feeling  of  the 
governor  and  the  tone  of  the  reigning  Emperor.  During 
this  reign  the  general  revival  of  religious  feeling  would 
naturally  lead  to  a  stricter  and  logical  interpretation  of  the 
instructions  ;  especially  as  it  would  rapidly  become  known 
that  the  Emperor  was  not  opposed  to  this  course. 

The  question  remains,  whether  there  was  any  actual 
change  made  in  the  instructions  by  Marcus  ?  Neumann 
considers,  p.  33  «.,  that  there  had  previously  been  actually 
a  clause  in  the  instructions,  forbidding  the  seeking  out  of 

*  Kaiva  Soy/iara,  nova  decreta,  in  the  former  case,  irpoa-TdynaTa, 
mandata,  in  the  latter.  In  Acta  Justini,  i.,  also  the  word  is 
TrpocTTay/xara. 


XIV.    Policy  of  Hadrian,  Pius,  and  Ilfarcus.  339 

Christians,  and  that  this  prohibition  was  abrogated  by 
Marcus.  He  quotes  the  action  of  Pudens,  as  above 
described  ;  but  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  the  proof  is 
sufficient.  Such  a  clause  may  perhaps  have  been  inserted 
in  the  instructions  issued  by  Hadrian  and  Pius  to  their 
lieutenants  in  the  provinces  ;  but  the  variability  of  pro- 
cedure would  rather  suggest  that  the  inconsistencies  which 
we  have  described  continued  to  exist  throughout  this  whole 
century,  and  that  none  of  the  Emperors  did  anything 
beyond  replying  by  rescript  to  questions  which  their 
lieutenants  addressed  to  them.  The  lieutenants  had  the 
general  instructions  to  seek  out  and  punish  sacrilegious  per- 
sons, etc.,  and  Christians  were  sacrilegious.  The  lieutenants 
might  then  either  carry  out  the  instructions  logically,  or 
observe  the  rescripts  of  Trajan  and  Hadrian  forbidding 
the  hunting  out  of  Christians.  Under  Marcus  the  logical 
course  was  the  rule. 

We  conclude,  then,  that  no  actual  change  was  made  by 
Marcus  Aurelius  in  the  wording  of  the  clauses  that  regu- 
lated the  attitude  of  the  provincial  governors  towards  the 
Christians.  He  did  not  professedly  alter  the  policy  of  his 
immediate  predecessors,  and  yet  the  spirit  of  that  policy 
was,  for  a  time,  changed. 

Far  more  cases  of  persecution  are  known  in  this  than  in 
the  preceding  reign  ;  but  no  stress  can  be  laid  on  this  fact. 
Contemporary  record  of  historical  facts  had  now  begun 
among  the  Christians,  and  the  interest  in  preserving 
Christian  documents  and  the  Acta  of  martyrs  dates  from 
about  the  sixth  decade  of  this  century.  The  principle  of 
proscription  still  continued  ;  and  persecution  had  never 
ceased  even  under  the  most  tolerant  Emperors. 

Neumann's  view  (p.  32)  is  very  different.     He  traces  the 


340        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire, 

intensification  of  persecution  in  this  reign  to  a  rescript, 
dated,  according  to  his  view,  in  A.D.  176,  forbidding  the 
introduction  of  new  religious  rites  which  tended  to  unsettle 
the  minds  of  the  people.  This  view  we  cannot  accept, 
(i)  It  does  not  explain  the  facts,  for  the  seeking  out  of  Chris- 
tians seems  to  have  been  practised  before  176  {Acta  Justini, 
163,  Melito,  perhaps  170).  (2)  The  rescript  was  merely  a 
reply  to  some  question  addressed  to  the  Emperor,  and  does 
not  appear  to  have  been  the  basis  of  procedure  against 
Christians,  for  it  was  approved  by  Christian  Emperors, 
and  retained  in  the  Digest.  (3)  In  177  the  Christians 
at  Lugdunum  do  not  appear  to  have  been  punished  for 
proselytising  ;  nor  did  they  suffer  the  milder  penalties  of 
this  rescript.*  The  procedure  is  the  same  as  of  old,  but 
carried  out  with  more  activity. 

Coincident  with  the  change  of  policy  there  was  a  revival 
of  the  old  charge  oi  flagitia  against  the  Christians.  It  is 
quoted  from  Pronto,  the  tutor  of  Marcus,  and  it  is  mentioned 
in  connection  with  the  persecution  at  Lugdunum  in  177. 
The  evidence  of  slaves  was  used  in  support  of  it ;  and  the 
statements  made  even  by  Christian  writers,  not  very  much 
later,  about  actual  scandals,  suggest  that  the  revival  was 
only  an  exaggeration  of  real  evils. 

4.  The  Apologists. 

With  Hadrian's  rescript  begins  the  age  of  Apologies — 
i.e.^  formal  defences  of  the  faith.  Christianity  had  now  a 
hearing  granted  to  it.     Before  112,  when  the  religion  was 

*  Neumann  quotes  the  expression  of  the  populace  at  Lugdunum, 

^evqv  Tiva  icai  KaivfjV  flcrdyovcn  OprjcrKelav,  Euseb.,  jEf.  E.,  V.,  I,  63  J   but 

this  phrase  was  not  used  in  the  trial,  nor  did  the  thought  affect  the 
proceedings.     Neumann  follows  Keim  in  his  dating,  see  p.  321  n. 


XIV.   Policy  of  Hadrian,  Pius,  and  Marcus.   341 

absolutely  condemned,  an  Apology  would  have  been 
absurd.  Now  that  the  Imperial  policy  was  hesitating 
about  its  attitude,  and  a  trial  was  allowed,  defence  and 
argument  might  have  some  effect  ;  and  a  long  series  of 
formal  pleadings  in  defence  were  addressed  to  the  Govern- 
ment, beginning,  perhaps,  about  129,  when  Aristides 
presented  his  Apology  to  Hadrian  during  his  visit  to 
Athens.* 

Defence  and  argument  imply  a  recognition  of  the 
authority  to  which  it  is  addressed.  The  spirit  of  which 
we  discerned  some  slight  indications  in  Ignatius'  letters 
(see  p.  315),  had  developed  greatly  before  the  first  Apology 
was  presented.  In  the  age  which  produced  i  John  and 
Apocalypse,  and  which  nourished  the  spirit  of  Ignatius, 
an  Apology  would  have  been  treason  to  religion.  The 
irreconcilable  opposition  to  the  actual  system,  and  the 
aspiration  after  an  absolutely  new  era  and  a  new  society, 
Had  now  been  given  up.  The  Church  responded  to  the 
tone  of  Hadrian's  action :  mutual  allowance  and  an 
approximation  between  the  two  great  enemies  began. 

The  Apologists  always  express  or  imply  with  regard 
to  the  character  of  Trajan's  action  the  same  view  that 
we  have  taken.  It  is  indeed  true  that  the  Apologists 
were  special  pleaders,  and  that  their  testimony  in  certain 
respects  must  be  discounted  to  a  certain  degree.  But 
they  were  advocates  of  at  least  fair  ability  and  good  sense  ; 


•  The  Apology  is  noticed  in  Euseb.,  H.  E.,  iv.,  3,  and  dated  in 
Chron.,  A.D.  125  ;  but  Hadrian's  second  visit  is  the  only  one  that 
can  be  thought  of.  Professor  Rendel  Harris  brings  down  the  date 
to  140.  Eusebius  seems  to  treat  Hadrian's  rescript  as  the  effect  of 
the  Apology ;  but  this  is,  no  doubt,  pure  conjecture,  and  we  rathe 
consider  the  Apology  as  elicited  by  the  rescript. 


342         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

misrepresentation  of  the  Imperial  action  was  subject  to 
immediate  contradiction,  and  could  only  injure  their  cause. 
They  would  naturally  darken  the  colours  of  the  picture 
which  they  drew  of  contemporary  paganism  ;  they  saw 
only  the  bad  side  of  it,  and  no  student  of  ancient  life  can 
accept  their  account  as  complete.  But,  if  the  view  that 
Trajan  was  the  institutor  of  formal  persecution  were  correct, 
it  is  hard  to  see  how  sane  men  could  think  to  effect  any 
good  by  misstating  plain  facts  of  recent  history  to  the 
Emperors,  The  Apologists  of  the  second  century  stand 
on  a  much  higher  intellectual  level,  if  our  interpretation 
of  the  evidence  is  correct. 

The  objection  may  be  urged  against  the  credit  of  the 
Apologists  that  TertuUian  speaks  of  Marcus  Aurelius  in 
terms  much  more  favourable  than  facts  seem  to  warrant* 
But,  as  we  have  seen,  Marcus  did  not  formally  make 
any  change  in  the  policy  of  his  predecessors,  though  he 
favoured  a  more  severe  interpretation  of  the  clauses  on 
which  that  policy  was  based  ;  and  he  ranks,  in  a  general 
view,  with  Trajan,  Hadrian,  and  Pius,  as  contrasted  with 
the  uncompromising  spirit  of  the  Flavian  Emperors ;  and 
this  is  all  that  TertuUian  asserts.f 

Moreover,  it  is  obvious  that  TertuUian  firmly  believed 
in  the  existence  of  a  letter  from  Aurelius  to  the  Senate, 
ascribing  to  Christian  soldiers  the  merit  of  a  great  deliver- 
ance from  imminent  danger  during  his  German  wars.  It 
is  impossible,  and,  unless  new  documents  are  discovered 
(of  which  hope  need  not  be  abandoned),  it  must  always 

•  Apolog.,  5. 

t  TertuUian  expressly  notes  that  Marcus  did  not  alter  the  general 
principle  of  condemning  Christians.  This  is  exactly  what  we  have 
to  remark  about  all  these  Emperors. 


XIV.    Policy  of  Hadrian,  Pius,  and  Marcus.    343 

remain  impossible,  to  discover  the  truth  of  that  famous 
legend.  So  much  is  certain  :  (i)  such  a  deliverance  did 
occur,  and  was  universally  attributed  to  the  special  in- 
terposition of  Heaven ;  (2)  there  were  many  Christian 
soldiers  in  the  army ;  *  (3)  the  Christians  at  the  time 
attributed  the  deliverance  to  the  prayers  of  these  soldiers,! 
(4)  P^'^gan  historians  narrated  the  almost  miraculous  event, 
but  explained  it  differently.  It  is  not  safe  to  assert  abso- 
lutely, what  is  the  most  simple  explanation,  that  Tertullian 
merely  assumes  that  there  existed  a  letter  of  Marcus  to 
the  Senate,  declaring  that  the  deliverance  had  followed  the 
prayers  of  the  Christians,  and  denouncing  penalties  against 
their  accusers.  This  explanation  is  apparently  simple ; 
but  it  leaves  unsolved  the  greatest  difficulty  of  the  case — 
viz.,  how  could  Tertullian  entertain  the  belief  which  he 
expresses  so  positively  in  a  document  addressed  to  the 
Senate,  if  it  were  contrary  to  all  facts  and  all  non-Christian 
evidence  and  belief?  It  is  clear  that  Tertullian  was  not 
conscious  that  any  opinion  different  from  his  own  existed, 
or  that  any  member  of  the  Senate  would    be   likely   to 


•  In  accordance  with  the  method  of  recruiting  the  Roman  army, 
as  deduced  by  Mommsen,  Hermes,  1884,  pp.  8  flf,  and  stated  very 
precisely  for  Africa  by  Cagnat,  I' Arrnee  Romaine  d^ Afrique, 
PP-  353  ff->  Legio  XII.  Fulminata,  whose  permanent  station 
{sfatwa)  was  at  MeHtene,  would  be  originally  recruited  from  the 
Eastern  provinces;  but  after  Hadrian  (Mommsen,  p.  21)  the 
recruiting  for  it  would  be  almost  wholly  restricted  to  the  adjacent 
provinces  of  Asia  Minor.  Christianity  was  specially  strong  in 
these  provinces;  "and,"  as  Mommsen  remarks  {Histor.  Zft., 
xxviii.,  p.  419,  n.  2),  "  the  camp  and  the  court  were  always  centres 
of  Christianising  influence." 

t  Apollinaris  is  strictly  contemporary ;  Tertullian  wrote  within 
about  twenty-three  years  of  the  event. 


344         "^^^  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

challenge  his  statement.     There  seems  to  be  more  in  the 
story  than  we  can  as  yet  fathom. 

The  Apologists  do  not  ask  for  a  change  of  law  ;  they 
ask  for  a  regulation  of  practice  to  accord  with  the  law  of 
the  State.  They  demand  for  Christians  a  fair  trial  on  some 
definite  charge,  attested  by  witnesses,  with  permission  to 
make  and  prove  their  defence.  They  ask  to  be  brought 
under  the  ordinary  law ;  and  they  inveigh  against  the 
exercise  of  arbitrary  authority  against  them  on  no  definite 
charge.  This,  the  most  elementary  right  of  citizens,  had 
been  absolutely  denied  them  by  the  Flavian  policy,  which 
treated  them  as  brigands.  Trajan  had  left  the  Flavian 
principle  unaltered,  but  had  exempted  them  from  active 
pursuit.  The  Apologists  justly  argue  against  the  illogical 
nature  of  a  policy  which  treats  them  like  brigands  when 
any  one  formally  accuses  them,  but  does  not  take  the 
trouble  to  look  for  them :  if  they  are  brigands,  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  State  to  hunt  them  down.  Even  Hadrian  had 
shrunk  from  the  decisive  step  of  clearly  stating  that  Chris- 
tianity was  not  in  itself  a  crime  ;  and  this  is  the  step 
which  the  Apologists  urge  upon  the  Emperors  whom  they 
address. 

In  support  of  this  claim  the  Apologists  advance  various 
arguments  :  (i)  that  their  religion  has  a  high  moral  tone, 
and  is  absolutely  inconsistent  with  the  gross  crimes  which 
were  currently  charged  against  them  ;  (2)  that  it  is  of  a 
higher  moral  character  than  Paganism,  and  is  therefore  an 
educative  influence  in  the  State ;  (3)  that  Christians  are 
loyal  citizens,  and,  though  they  are  compelled  by  their 
religion  to  abstain  from  some  of  the  conventional  signs  of 
loyalty,  yet  in  all  essential  points  they  discharge  its  duties 
fully;  (4)  that  a  name  is  not  in  itself  a  crime,  and  that 


XIV.   Policy  of  Hadrian,  Pius,  and  Marcus.    345 


even  a  brigand  is  not  punished  for  the  name  he  bears,  but 
only  after  the  truth  has  been  proved  in  regard  to  his 
actions. 

An  essential  point  in  the  Christian  doctrine  was  the 
unity  and  brotherhood  of  all  men  ;  and  the  same  idea 
was  being  gradually  wrought  into  the  Imperial  system. 
Trajan  and  Hadrian,  two  Spaniards,  free  from  the  nar- 
rower Roman  tradition,  were,  not  unnaturally,  the  leaders 
in  the  policy  of  mercy  towards  the  party  that  carried  out 
most  logically  the  idea  which  they  themselves  did  much 
to  work  out  in  practice.  Tatian  expresses  this  idea  more 
clearly  than  any  other  of  the  Apologists,  and  contrasts  it 
with  the  theories  of  Greek  philosophy,  which  always  clung 
to  the  old  separation  of  states,  and  the  belief  that  moderate 
size  was  of  the  essence  of  a  state.  In  §  28  he  professes  the 
cosmopolitan  doctrine,  and  rejects  the  narrower  systems 
which  separate  state  from  state.  The  true  philosophy 
maintains  that  there  should  be  one  common  polity  for  all, 
and  one  universal  system  of  law  and  custom.  The  Christian 
doctrine,  §  29,  puts  an  end  to  the  servitude  that  is  in  the 
world,  and  rescues  mankind  from  a  multiplicity  of  rulers. 
Its  aim,  §  32,  is  universal  education,  not  education  confined 
to  the  rich,  as  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans  ;  its  prin- 
ciple is  free  education  to  the  poor,  and  it  makes  no 
distinction  of  sex,  but  admits  all  to  its  universal  system 
of  education.  He  defends,  §  33,  the  Christian  custom  of 
women  studying  philosophy.* 

•  Tatian  did  not  address  any  Emperor;  but  he  employs  similar 
arguments  with  the  other  Apologists,  sometimes  expressing  them 
more  sharply.  Tertullian's  A^ologeticum  would  need  a  chapter  to 
itselL 


CHAPTER  XV. 

CAUSE  AND  EXTENT  OF  PERSECUTION. 

WE  have  now  determined  the  main  facts  in  regard  to 
the  action  of  the  State  towards  the  Christians 
before  A.D.  170.  We  have  next  to  inquire  into  the  reason 
why  the  Empire  proscribed  this  sect.  The  question  is 
presented  to  us  as  a  paradox  :  the  Empire  being  remarkably 
tolerant,  as  a  general  rule,  in  religious  matters,  what  reason 
was  there  for  the  persecution  of  this  religion  ? 

I.  Popular  Hatred  of  the  Christians. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  dislike  generally  enter- 
tained towards  the  Christians  was  an  element  in  deter- 
mining the  attitude  of  the  Emperors  and  their  delegates 
towards  them.  The  governors,  and  even  the  Emperors  to 
a  less  degree,  acted  in  some  cases  simply  to  conciliate  the 
populace,  and  keep  it  in  good  humour.  The  action  of  Nero 
was,  as  we  have  seen,  turned  against  the  Christians  through 
his  wish  to  supplant  one  passion  by  another  in  the  popular 
mind.  Having  private  reasons  for  seeking  to  divert  the 
populace,  he  tortured  for  their  amusement  a  class  of  persons 
whom  they  hated. 

We  have  found  reason  to  think  that  at  first  Christianity 
was  received  in  Asia  Minor,  and  perhaps  in  the  West 
generally,  without  any  detestation,  and  even  with  consider- 
able favour.     The  growth  of  the  opposite  feeling  was  due 

to  various  social  causes,  among  which  probably  the  strongest 

346 


XV.    Cause  and  Extent  of  Persecution.     347 

were  (i)  loss  incurred  by  tradesmen  whose  business  was 
interfered  with  by  the  habits  which  Christianity  inculcated  ; 
(2)  annoyance  caused  in  pagan  families  by  the  conver- 
sion of  individual  members.  In  the  latter  case  it  is  clear 
that  the  anger  felt  by  the  pagan  members  of  any  family - 
would,  as  a  rule,  be  proportionate  to  the  degree  of  affection  ^ 
that  had  existed  before  the  family  was  disunited.  The 
stronger  the  love  that  had  held  together  the  family,  the 
stronger  the  hatred  that  would  be  felt  against  those  who 
had  introduced  discord  into  it. 

Spurred  on  by  such  causes,  private  individuals  tried  to 
revenge  themselves  on  those  whom  they  considered  to  have 
injured  them,  whether  by  riotous  and  illegal  action  (Acts 
xiv.  19,  xvii.  5,  xix.  23  ff.),  by  action  before  the  magistrates 
of  provincial  cities,  who  were  not  empowered  to  inflict 
severe  penalties  (Acts  xvi.  19),  or  by  moving  the  Roman 
law  (Acts  xix.  38). 

Various  methods  of  prosecution  before  ordinary  tri- 
bunals might  be,  and  frequently  were,  employed  by  in- 
dividuals who  felt  themselves  aggrieved.  Some  of  these 
have  been  already  referred  to  (p.  250  f).  Riotous  con- 
duct, disturbance  of  the  public  peace,  sedition,  and  sac- 
rilege, were  charges  that  readily  suggested  themselves 
(Acts  xix.  37),  and  might  be  tried  with  good  hopes  of 
success  ;  but  a  purely  religious  charge  was  derided  by  the 
Roman  officials  (Acts  xviii.   15-17).*     We  have  seen  that 

•  St.  Paul's  experience  in  Corinth  of  the  favour  of  the  Roman 
courts  as  a  defence  against  the  Jews  seems  to  have  produced  a 
powerful  effect  on  his  thought  and  teaching.  This  event  divides 
the  two  letters  to  the  Thessalonians  by  a  deep  chasm  from  the  group 
of  Galatians,  Corinthians,  Romans.  There  is  a  remarkable  change 
of  feeling  as  we  pass  from  one  group  to  the  other. 


34^         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

charges  of  breaking  up  the  peace  of  family  life  formed 
the  subject  of  anxious  consideration  and  advice  both  to 
St.  Paul  and  to  St.  Peter  (see  pp.  246,  281) ;  and  we  cannot 
doubt  that  such  charges  had  often  been  carried  into  court. 
The  father  or  husband  or  master  dealt  in  private  with  the 
individual  members  of  his  family  ;  *  but  he  must  go  before 
the  courts  in  order  to  punish  the  person  who  had  tampered 
with  their  beliefs  and  habits.  In  such  actions  probably 
the  accusation  of  unjustifiable  interference  with  the  sphere 
of  duties  and  rights  belonging  to  another,!  though  not 
recognised  as  a  criminal  category,  would  be  useful  to  excite 
odium  and  bad  feeling,  a  practice  in  which  extreme  licence 
was  conceded  to  pleaders  in  Roman  courts. 

The  persecution  of  Nero  made  the  situation  of  the 
Christians  distinctly  worse,  without  altering  its  general 
character.  The  Emperor's  action  in  allowing  certain 
charges,  moral,  rather  than  criminal,  to  be  urged  against 
Christians,  constituted  a  precedent,  and  exercised  a  strong 
influence  on  all  provincial  governors  in  judging  such  cases; 
but  still  the  same  method  remained  in  practice,  and  the 
governors  in  Asia  Minor  still  stood  as  judges  between  the 
Christian  and  his  accuser  ;  "  for  praise  to  them  that  do 
well"  (i  Peter  ii.  15).  Christians  suffered  by  being  con- 
victed as  criminals,  and  not  as  Christians  ;  defence  lay  in 
a  life  above  suspicion  (i  Peter  iv.  25). 


*  Tacitus,  A  nnals,  xiii.,  32.  Pomponia  was  judged  by  her  husband 
'brisco  instituto,  A.D.  58, 

t  The  Latin  term,  alienum  s^eculari,  and  the  noun,  a  Item  specu- 
lator, suggested  the  extraordinary  Greek  rendering  aXXoT-pioeTrto-KOTro?, 
1  Peter  iv.  15,  which  is  quite  unintelligible,  except  as  a  rough 
attempt  to  translate  a  foreign  term  that  had  no  recognised  equiva- 
lent in  Greek  (see  p.  293  n). 


XV.    Catcse  and  Extent  of  Persecution.     349 

It  is  not  true  that  mere  social  annoyances  could  have 
had  a  serious  character,  until,  through  Nero's  example, 
they  were  abetted  and  completed  by  action  on  the  part 
of  the  Roman  administration  ;  and  it  is  regrettable  that 
several  excellent  authorities  have  countenanced  this  un- 
historical  view*  It  is  true  that  James  implies  persecution 
of  a  more  serious  character,  as  taking  place  before  the 
Neronian  policy  had  come  into  force ;  but  James  wrote  to 
Jews,  who  were  not  governed  solely  by  Roman  law,  but 
who,  down  to  A.D.  70,  administered  justice  to  a  certain 
extent  among  themselves,  according  to  their  own  sacred 
law,  even  in  Roman  cities  of  the  Eastern  provinces.  Of 
course  the  most  serious  penalties,  and  especially  death, 
.were  beyond  the  independent  Jewish  jurisdiction  ;  but  still 
much  sufTering  could  be  legally  inflicted  by  Jews  on  other 
Jews,  unless  the  victims  possessed  the  Roman  citizenship,  f 
Hence  the  situation  of  Jewish  Christians  before  A.D.  64  was 
much  more  serious  than  that  of  Gentile  Christians ;  but 
after  that  year  official  Roman  action  could  be  invoked  with 
confident  expectation  of  success  against  both  classes,  and 
after  A.D.  70  the  self-governing  privileges  of  the  Jews  .vere 
entirely  withdrawn. 


•  Weiss'  commentary  on  i  Peter  {die  katholischen  Briefe, 
Leipzig,  1892),  whatever  be  its  merits  in  a  textual  or  theological 
view,  is  a  distinct  retrogression  from  Holtzmann  and  other  critics 
when  regarded  as  a  historical  investigation.     On  Spitta,  see  p.  300. 

t  The  Jews  could  act  against  the  Roman  Paul  only  by  rousing 
official  Roman  action  on  some  pretext.  Gallic  probably  did  not  allow 
the  case  to  go  far  enough  to  find  out  whether  Paul  was  Roman,  but 
dismissed  the  case  to  the  Jewish  tribunals.  In  the  case  of  Jesus, 
the  Jews  could  not  make  the  matter  a  serious  one,  except  before  the 
Roman  tribunal.  The  Jews,  even  in  Palestine,  coulJ  not  suffer  to 
death  (Heb.  xii.  4),  except  before  a  Roman  governor. 


350        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Experiences  of  the  kind  described,  though  annoying  in 
themselves,  could  never  have  been  a  serious  evil  or  danger 
to  the  Christians  ;  and  the  Apologists  of  the  second  century 
argue  in  favour  of  the  restoration  of  this  procedure  {Justin^ 
i.,  3  ;  Tatian,  4,  etc.),  claiming  a  fair  statement  of  charges 
against  each  Christian,  an  open  trial,  and  liberty  of  defence 
against  the  accusation.  While  this  kind  of  persecution 
alone  was  available  against  them,  the  Christians  had  fair 
treatment  and  toleration  from  the  Roman  officials,  and  on 
the  whole  looked  to  them  for  protection.  Paul  himself 
suffered  personally  a  good  deal  of  hard  treatment ;  but  he 
is  an  exceptional  case.  A  poor  Jewish  stranger,  almost 
a  beggar,  whose  language  in  public  had  led  to  much 
disorder  among  the  Jews,  and  who  was  exposed  to  the 
enmity  of  rich  and  influential  Jews,  must  not  be  taken  as 
a  fair  instance  of  what  known  citizens  would  suffer  in  their 
own  land. 

It  was  not  merely  the  populace  who  felt  this  dislike  to 
the  Christians ;  the  governors  of  provinces,  the  officials  of 
every  class,  the  Emperors  themselves,  shared  it.  Even 
such  a  humane  spirit  as  Pliny  was  so  shocked  by  the 
demeanour  of  the  Christians  on  their  trial  that  he  men- 
tioned it  to  Trajan,  as  in  itself  a  sufficient  reason  for 
condemnation.  The  Greeks  were  difficult  enough  to 
deal  with.  Cicero  speaks  of  their  perverse  humour,  with 
which  all  Romans  who  had  dealings  with  them  must 
reckon ;  *  and  every  proconsul  of  Asia  could  tell  many 
a  tale   of  the   unreasonable   ways   of  the  Greeks   in   the 


*  Perversitas,  Fatn  III.^  i.,  4.  Every  Turkish  governor  would 
give  the  same  account  now.  Greeks  under  his  power  make  his  life 
a  burden  to  him. 


XV.    Cause  and  Extent  of  Persecution.     351 

coast  cities.  But  the  Roman  governors  found  the  Christians 
much  more  difficult  to  manage  than  the  Greeks. 

Popular  feeling,  therefore,  was  strongly  on  the  side  of 
persecution ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  reason 
for  the  severity  of  Marcus  Aurelius  lay  in  the  dislike  which 
he  shared  with  the  educated  and  uneducated  classes  alike. 
Void  of  insight  into  social  questions,  and  raised  above 
enthusiasm  by  philosophy,  Marcus  honestly  carried  out 
against  the  Christians  the  principles  in  which  he  believed. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  look  for  the  reason  of  the 
antipathy  towards  the  Christians  in  their  disobedience  to 
any  single  law.  The  Christians  were  so  diametrically  op- 
posed to  the  general  tendencies  of  the  Government  and  of 
the  ancient  social  system,  they  violated  in  such  an  unshrink- 
ing, unfeeling,  uncompromising  way  the  principles  which 
society  and  philosophy  set  most  store  by,  that  to  prosecute 
them  under  any  one  law,  or  to  think  of  them  as  ordinary 
criminals  guilty  on  one  single  count,  was  to  minimise  their 
offence  in  an  apparently  absurd  degree.  It  was  true  that 
a  Christian  was  guilty  of  treason  against  the  Emperor,  and 
as  such  deserved  death  ;  but  to  put  his  crime  on  that 
footing  was  to  class  him  with  many  noble  and  high-minded 
Romans,  who  had  been  condemned  for  the  same  offence. 
It  was  true  that  he  practised  a  foreign  and  degrading 
superstition  ;  and  that  he  induced  many  Roman  citizens 
to  desert  their  patriotic  loyalty  to  the  religion  of  their 
country  and  their  fathers,  and  to  go  astray  after  a  fan- 
tastic and  exaggerated  devotion  ;  but  the  worshippers  of 
Isis  and  of  Sabazios  did  something  of  the  same  kind,  and 
the  fashion  was  to  treat  this  offence  with  contemptuous 
toleration.  It  was  true  that  Christians  cut  themselves 
off    from    all    Greek   culture,   from    everything    that   was 


352         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

good  and  noble ;  that  they  broke  up  family  ties,  and  set 
brother  against  brother  ;  that  their  words,  thoughts,  and  acts 
were  alike  void  of  good  result  for  society  ;  that  they  stood 
aloof  from  the  pleasures,  the  religion,  and  the  duties  of 
educated  or  loyal  citizens  ;  held  no  official  position  ;  com- 
forted none  who  were  in  sorrow  ;  healed  no  dissensions  ; 
gave  no  good  counsel ;  made  poverty  and  beggary  into 
virtues ;  practised  robbery  under  the  guise  of  equality, 
and  shameless  vice  under  the  cloak  of  rigid  virtue ;  made 
evil  into  good,  and  reckoned  ugliness  as  beauty ;  laid 
claim  to  be  the  true  philosophers  ;  and  spoke  villainous 
Greek.  But,  as  the  very  man  who  paints  this  picture  im- 
plies, so  did  the  Cynics  ;  *  yet  the  Cynics  were  merely 
satirised  and  ridiculed. 

The  combination  of  so  many  and  various  faults,  com- 
bined with  the  power  given  them  by  their  close  union, 
and  the  fear  which  mingled  with  and  embittered  the 
general  hatred,  rendered  them  pre-eminently  the  object  of 
popular  fury  ;  it  seemed  absurd  to  apply  to  such  people 
any  ordinary  judicial  process.  Hence  the  Flavian  pro- 
scription, which  treated  them  like  brigands,  met  with 
general  approval.  One  cry  alone  was  adequate  to  the 
case — Christianos  ad  hones.  If  they  gave  only  annoyance 
to  the  world  during  their  life,  let  them  at  least  afford 
society  some  compensation  by  amusing  it  at  their  death. 

Some  of  the  traits   in  the  picture  drawn   by  Aristides 

*  Aristides,  un-ep  rSiv  Tfrrdpcov,  vol.  iL,  p.  400  f.  (Dind.)  So  un- 
suitable do  some  of  the  traits  appear  to  Lightfoot,  that  he  refuses 
to  accept  it  as  a  picture  of  the  Christians,  and  declares  that  the 
Cynics  were  the  model  for  Aristides  to  paint  from  {Ignat.,  i.,  p.  533). 
But  I  cannot  separate  the  picture  wholly  from  the  Christians,  nor 
believe  that  the  Cynics  alone  could  have  aroused  the  deep-seated 
hatred  which  is  here  expressed.     They  were  not  sufficiently  power- 


XV.    Cause  and  Extent  of  Persecution.     353 

partake  (to  put  it  mildly)  of  exaggeration  and  prejudice  ; 
but  if  we  wish  to  understand  this  question  we  must 
approach  the  subject  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Empire, 
and  of  the  educated  classes  of  pagan  society,  and  try  to 
realise  their  views.  We  must,  for  the  moment,  assume  the 
attitude  of  those  who  found  the  fabric  of  society  assailed 
by  the  Christians  with  a  bitter  undistinguishing  hostility 
and  contempt,  which  the  student  of  classical  antiquity 
must  feel  to  have  been   not  wholly  deserved. 

But  action  that  consists  only  in  occasionally  yielding 
to  pressure  from  popular  passions  does  not  constitute 
a  policy.  We  have  seen  that  a  permanent  proscription  of 
the  Name  of  Christian  was  implied  in  Pliny's  first  action  ; 
and  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  the  permanent  policy 
of  such  a  government  as  the  Roman  was  determined  by 
mere  feelings  of  personal  and  popular  dislike.  We  cannot 
suppose  that  these  passions  weighed  with  Trajan,  when  he 
reaffirmed  the  general  principle  of  proscription.  Hadrian 
and  Pius  expressly  forbade  that  popular  clamour  should 
weigh  against  a  Christian  ;  but  they  both  left  the  general 
principle   in    force.      The   direct   and    strong   antagonism 


ful  to  cause  fear ;  and  only  an  enemy  which  is  also  feared  can  rouse 
such  intense  hatred.  The  Cynics  and  the  Christians  were  united  in 
the  mind  of  Aristides  and  his  compeers  as  two  members  of  one 
class,  differing  in  some  respects,  but,  on  the  whole,  of  the  same  type, 
and  this  picture  gives  the  features  common  to  the  class.  The  Greek 
philosophers  objected  to  the  cosmopolitan  spirit  and  superiority  to 
the  narrow  Greek  state,  which  characterised  both  Cynics  and  Chris- 
tians. Neumann,  pp.  35-6,  has  caught  excellently  the  spirit  of  this 
passage,  following  a  fragment  of  Bernays,  Gesammelte  Abhandl.,  ii., 
p.  362,  which  seems  to  imply  a  change  from  the  view  expressed  in 
Lucian  und  die  Kyniker.  In  that  work  Bernays  considered  the 
description  to  be  intended  for  the  Cynics  alone. 

23 


354        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

against  the  State  which  rules  in  Apocalypse  and  Ignatius 
cannot  be  thus  explained.  We  must  look  deeper  for  the 
real  ground  of  the  Imperial  action,  which,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  probably  determined  about  75-80  A.D. 

2.  Real  Causes  of  State  Persecution. 

The  success  of  the  Imperial  Government  in  the  provinces 
rested  greatly  on  its  power  of  accommodating  itself  to  the 
ways  and  manners  and  religion  of  the  subjects  ;  it  accepted 
and  found  a  place  in  its  system  for  all  gods  and  all  cults. 
Religious  intolerance  was  opposed  to  the  fundamental 
principles  of  the  Imperial  rule,  and  few  traces  of  it  can  be 
discerned.  It  proscribed  the  Christians,  and  it  proscribed 
the  Druids.  In  these  two  cases  there  must  have  seemed 
to  the  Imperial  Government  to  be  some  characteristic  which 
required  exceptional  treatment.  In  both  cases  there  was 
present  the  same  dangerous  principle  :  both  maintained  an 
extra-Imperial  unity,  and  were  proscribed  on  political,* 
not  on  religious,  grounds. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Jews  must  have  appeared  to 
the  Government  to  resemble  the  Christians  very  closely. 
Almost  every  trait  in  the  picture  drawn  by  Aristides 
applies  to  them,  and  they  also  were  the  object  of  general 
hatred.  But  so  far  from  yielding  to  the  popular  feeling 
in  this  case,  the  Imperial  policy  protected  the  Jews  on 
many  occasions  from  the  popular  dislike. 

*  Mommsen  says  {Provinces,  i.,  p.  105)  "the  institution  of  the 
Gallic  annual  festival  in  the  purely  Roman  capital  .  .  .  was  evi- 
dently a  countermove  of  the  Government  against  the  old  religion  of 
the  country,  with  its  annual  council  of  priests  at  Chartres,  the  centre 
of  the  Gallic  land."  See  also  Duruy  in  Revue  Archeologique,  April 
1880,  p.  247  (347). 


Xl^.    Caiise  and  Extent  of  Persecution.     355 

If  the  Jews  appeared  to  the  Emph-e  to  resemble  the 
Christians  so  much,  and  yet  were  treated  so  differently,  the 
reason  for  the  difference  in  treatment  must  have  lain  in 
those  points  in  which  the  Christians  differed  from  the 
Jews  in  the  estimate  of  the  Imperial  Government.*  In  so 
far  the  Jews  were  merely  a  body  professing  a  different 
religion ;  the  Emperors  allowed  them  the  complctest 
toleration.  But  so  long  as  the  Jews  maintained  an  articu- 
lated organisation,  centred  in  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem, 
they  maintained  a  unity  distinct  from  that  of  the  Empire ; 
and  this  fact  was  brought  home  to  the  Emperors  by  the 
great  rebellion  of  65-70.  The  Flavian  policy  (see  p.  254) 
made  a  distinction  between  the  Jewish  religion  and  the 
Jewish  organised  unity  ;  the  former  was  protected,  but  the 
latter  was  proscribed.  Titus  conceived  that  the  destruction 
of  the  temple  would  destroy  the  unity  centred  in  it ;  and 
he  substituted  the  temple  of  Jupiter  tor  the  temple  at 
Jerusalem,  collecting  for  the  former  the  tax  hitherto  con- 
tributed by  the  Jews  for  the  latter. 

With  the  Jews  it  was  found  possible  to  separate  their 
religion  from  their  organisation.  The  destruction  of  the 
temple,  indeed,  had  to  be  completed  under  Hadrian  by  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  foundation  of  a  new 
Roman  city  there.  But,  to  a  great  extent  after  70,  and 
completely  after  134,  the  Jews  accepted  the  situation  as- 
signed them  by  the  State — religious  toleration  on  con- 
dition of  acquiescence  in  the  unity  of  the  Empire. 

*  Tacitus,  indeed,  says  {Hist.,  v.,  5)  that  the  Jewish  rites  unit' 
quitate  defendu7itur ;  but  he  is  not  here  professing  to  explain 
formally  why  the  Empire  favoured  the  Jews.  The  distinction  in  this 
point  of  antiquity  between  Judaism  and  Christianity  had  more 
weight  in  philosophy  than  in  government 


356        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Titus  at  first  entertained  the  belief  that  the  Christians 
also  had  their  centre  in  the  temple,  and  that  their  unity- 
would  perish  with  it  (p.  254).  But  soon  the  Flavian 
Government  recognised  that  their  united  organisation  was 
no  whit  weakened  by  the  destruction  of  the  temple.  The 
Christians  still  continued,  no  less  than  before,  to  maintain 
a  unity  independent  of,  and  contrary  to,  the  Imperial  unity, 
and  to  consolidate  steadily  a  wide-reaching  organisation. 
Such  an  organisation  was  contrary  to  the  fundamental 
principle  of  Roman  government.  Rome  had  throughout 
its  career  made  it  a  fixed  principle  to  rule  by  dividing  ; 
all  subjects  must  look  to  Rome  alone;  none  might  look 
towards  their  neighbours,  or  enter  into  any  agreement  or 
connection  with  them.  But  the  Christians  looked  to  a 
non-Roman  unity ;  they  decided  on  common  action  inde- 
pendent of  Rome  ;  they  looked  on  themselves  as  Christians 
first,  and  Roman  subjects  afterwards  ;  and,  when  Rome 
refused  to  accept  this  secondary  allegiance,  they  ceased  to 
feel  themselves  Roman  subjects  at  all.  When  this  was  the 
case,  it  seems  idle  to  look  about  for  reasons  why  Rome 
should  proscribe  the  Christians.  If  it  was  true  to  itself,  it 
must  compel  obedience ;  and  to  do  so  meant  death  to  all 
firm  Christians.  In  the  past  the  success  of  the  Roman 
Government  had  been  greatly  due  to  the  rigour  with  which 
it  suppressed  all  organisations  ;  and  the  Church  was  a 
living  embodiment  of  the  tendency  which  hitherto  Rome 
had  succeeded  in  crushing.  Either  Rome  must  now 
compel  obedience,  or  it  must  acknowledge  that  the  Chris- 
tian unity  was  stronger  than  the  Empire, 

This  disobedience  to  the  principles  of  Roman  admini- 
stration is  only  one  form  of  that  spirit  of  insubordination 
and  obstinacy,  which  is  so  often  attributed  to  the  Christians 


XV.    Catise  and  Extent  of  Persecution.     357 

by  the  ancient  writers,  and  which  seemed  to  Pliny  to  justify 
their  condemnation.  In  his  note  on  the  passage  (Pliny,  ad 
Traj.,  96),  Mr.  Hardy  rightly  remarks  that  "  the  feature  of 
Christianity  which  Pliny  here  points  out  as  a  sufficient 
reason  *  for  punishing  them,  was  exactly  the  point  which, 
as  Christianity  grew,  made  it  seem  politically  dangerous  to 
the  authority  of  the  Empire,  and  which,  more  than  religious 
intolerance,  was  at  the  root  of  later  persecutions."  We 
ask  why  it  should  be  left  for  Pliny  to  make  the  discovery 
that  the  Christian  principles  were  dangerous.  He  was  not 
the  first  governor  of  a  province  in  which  Christians  were 
numerous.  He  was  not  the  character  to  display  special 
insight  into  the  probable  political  outcome  of  new  prin- 
ciples, or  to  be  specially  jealous  of  the  authority  of  the 
Empire.  He  was  not  a  practised  administrator.  He  had 
never  before  held  a  province.  He  had  been  a  skilful  finan- 
cier and  good  lawyer,  whose  entire  official  life  had  been 
spent  in  Rome  with  the  single  exception  of  the  necessary 
months  of  military  service  as  a  tribune,  and  even  this 
term  he  had  spent  in  managing  the  accounts  of  the  legion. 
He  had  been  selected  for  this  government  becau^^^e  the 
finances  of  the  cities  were  in  a  bad  state,  and  a  trustworthy 
and  hardworking  officer  and  good  financier  was  needed  to 
administer  the  province.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that, 
if  Pliny  perceived  forthwith  the  disobedience  that  was  in- 
herent in  the  new  religion,  every  governor  of  any  Asiatic 
province,  every  Emperor  of  Rome,  and  every  prefect  of 
the  city,  must  have  made  the  same  discovery  for  himself 
long  before  112. 

•  I  have  made  one  slight,  but  significant,  change,  substituting 
"  a  sufi&cient  reason  "for  "  his  personal  reason."  Compare  note  on 
p.  214  ;  also  excursus,  p.  374. 


^^8        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

The  cause  here  suggested,  obvious  as  it  appears,  has 
been  ridiculed  as  impossible  by  Aube,  who  thinks  it  incon- 
ceivable that  Nero  should  already  have  begun  to  suspect 
that  the  growth  of  the  organised  Christian  religion  might 
prove  dangerous  to  the  Empire.  It  is  difficult  to  reply  to 
such  an  argument.  For  my  own  part,  I  can  see  nothing 
improbable  even  in  this  supposition,  and  still  less  in  the 
theory  that  the  Flavian  Emperors  considered  Christianity 
to  involve  a  dangerous  principle.  I  should  only  be  sur- 
prised if  the  watchful  Roman  administration  had  failed  to 
recognise  at  a  very  early  moment  that  the  principles  of  the 
new  sect  were  opposed  to  its  policy.  Trajan  refused  to 
permit  an  organisation  of  1 50  firemen  in  Nicomedeia,  or  to 
allow  a  few  poor  people  to  improve  their  fare  by  dining 
in  company,  on  the  express  ground  that  such  organisations 
involved  political  danger.  The  Christians  so  managed  their 
organisation  as  to  elude  the  law  prohibiting  sodalitates ;  * 
but  they  could  not  elude  the  notice  of  the  Emperors. 

How  can  we  understand  the  marvellous  power  which  the 
Empire  showed  of  Romanising  the  provinces,  except  on 
the  supposition  that  it  showed  great  practical  ability  in 
dealing  with  the  various  views  and  principles  of  different 
peoples  ?  and  how  is  such  practical  ability  to  be  explained, 
except  on  the  supposition  that  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment was  keenly  alive  to  the  character  and  probable 
effect  of  any  such  system  ?  The  Emperors  were  aiming  at 
a  great  end  ;  they  pursued  it  with  all  the  experience  and 
wisdom  of  Roman  law  and  Roman  organisation  ;  and  they 
punished  rigorously  those  who  impeded  their  action. 

*  The  discontinuance  of  Agapae  (see  p.  215)  for  this  reason  in 
Bithynia  may  safely  be  taken  as  a  type  of  the  action  of  other 
Christians  in  this  respect. 


XV.    Cause  and  Extent  of  Persecution.     359 

The  principle  of  government  just  described  is  connected 
with,  but  still  must  be  distinguished  from,  the  restrictions 
imposed  on  the  formation  of  collegia  and  sodalitates.  The 
same  jealousy  on  the  part  of  the  Government  and  the 
same  distrust  of  the  loyalty  of  the  people  underlies  both. 
While  Rome  was  a  republic,  all  citizens  had  the  right  of 
forming  associations  at  will ;  but  as  soon  as  the  Empire 
began,  it  distrusted  such  associations,  and  Julius  restricted 
them  within  the  narrowest  limits  ;*  for  the  Roman  Govern- 
ment now  considered  the  Roman  people  as  a  danger 
to  be  guarded  against.  The  old  rule  of  prohibiting  all 
attempts  at  union  among  the  subject  populations,  appears 
under  the  Empire  mainly  under  the  form  of  prohibiting 
collegia  and  sodalitates  ;  but  it  was  really  of  much  wider 
scope,  and  this  prohibition  was  only  one  special  applica- 
tion of  a  general  principle. 

This  jealous  principle  of  Roman  administration  was  fatal 
to  all  vigorous  life  and  political  education  among  the 
subject  peoples.  It  was  an  inheritance  from  the  old 
narrow  Roman  system,  which  regarded  the  subject  peoples 
merely  as  conducive  to  the  benefit  of  Rome.  The  true 
interest  of  the  Empire  lay  in  abandoning  this  narrow  and 
jealous  spirit,  and  training  the  provincials  to  higher  con- 
ceptions of  political  duty  than  mere  obedience  to  the  laws 
and  the  magistrates.     Only  in  this  way  could  it  carry  out 

•  Benefit  clubs  among  poor  people,  associations  for  mutual  assist- 
ance, alone  were  permitted ;  and  these  were  allowed  to  meet  only 
once  a  month  for  any  purpose  beyond  religious  ritual,  which  was  of 
course  unimpeded.  The  commonest  kind  of  these  clubs  were  Burial 
Societies  ;  but  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  these  were  the 
only  examples  of  their  class.  The  use  of  the  term  collegia  funeraticia 
(a  purely  modern  name)  has  sometimes  led  to  the  false  idea  that 
these  alone  were  permitted.     They  were  collegia  tenuiorum. 


360        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

its  mission  of  creating  a  great  unified  state,  characterised 
by  universal  citizenship  and  patriotism  (see  p.  192 «.). 
Here,  as  in  many  other  cases,  the  Church  carried  out  the 
ideas  and  forms  towards  which  the  Empire  was  tending, 
but  which  it  could  not  realise  without  the  aid  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

Political  and  religious  facts  were  in  ancient  time  far  more 
closely  connected  than  they  are  now.  It  was  under  the 
protection  of  religion  that  law,  social  rules,  and  politics, 
gradually  developed.  Before  they  had  strength  to  exist 
apart,  they  maintained  themselves  as  religious  principles, 
enforced  by  religious  sanctions  and  terrors.  Thus  the  right 
of  free  general  intercourse  and  free  union  among  all  sub- 
jects of  the  Empire,  had  for  a  long  time  no  existence 
except  as  a  religious  fact. 

The  strength  of  the  Imperial  Government  lay  in  its 
recognising,  more  fully  than  any  administration  before  or 
since  has  done,  the  duty  of  maintaining  a  tolerable  stan- 
dard of  comfort  among  the  poorer  classes  of  citizens.  But 
while  it  showed  great  zeal  as  regards  their  physical  comfort, 
it  was  less  attentive  to  the  other  duty  of  educating  them. 
The  education  imparted  on  a  definite  plan  by  the  State 
did  not  go  beyond  a  regular  series  of  amusements,  some  of 
a  rather  brutalising  tendency.  Christianity  came  in  to  the 
help  of  the  Imperial  Government,  urging  the  duty  of  edu- 
cating, as  well  as  feeding  and  amusing,  the  mass  of  the 
population.  The  theory  of  universal  education  for  the 
people  has  never  been  more  boldly  and  thoroughly  stated 
than  by  Tatian  (see  p.  345).  The  weak  side  of  the  Empire 
— the  cause  of  the  ruin  of  the  first  Empire — was  the  moral 
deterioration  of  the  lower  classes :  Christianity,  if  adopted 
in  time,  might  have  prevented  this  result. 


Xl^.    Cause  and  Extent  of  Persecution.     361 

3.  Organisation  of  the  Church. 

The  administrative  forms  in  which  the  Church  gradually 
came  to  be  organised  were  determined  by  the  state  of 
society  and  the  spirit  of  the  age.  In  the  conflict  with  the 
civil  Government  these  forms  were,  in  a  sense,  forced  on  it  ; 
but  it  would  be  an  error  to  suppose  that  they  were  forced 
on  it  in  mere  self-defence  against  a  powerful  enemy.  They 
were  accepted  actively,  not  passively.  The  Church  gradually 
became  conscious  of  the  real  character  of  the  task  which  it 
had  undertaken.  It  came  gradually  to  realise  that  it  was 
a  world-wide  institution,  and  must  organise  a  world-wide 
system  of  administration.  It  grew  as  a  vigorous  and 
healthy  organism,  which  worked  out  its  own  purposes,  and 
maintained  itself  against  the  disintegrating  influence  of 
surrounding  forces ;  but  the  line  of  its  growth  was  deter- 
mined by  its  environment* 

The  analogy  between  the  Church  and  the  State  organisa- 
tions is  close  and  real.  But  it  would  be  a  mistake  to 
attribute  it  to  conscious  imitation,  or  even  to  seek  in 
Roman  institutions  the  origin  of  Church  institutions  that 
resemble  them.  The  Christians  would  have  indignantly 
rejected  all  idea  of  such  imitation. 

Hermas  states  {Vis.,  ii.,  4,  i)  the  view  held  by  the  early 


•  As  I  cannot  hope  to  hit  the  passionless  scientific  truth  in  a 
subject  so  difficult  as  the  present,  or  to  avoid  conflicting  with 
widely  felt  emotions,  where  such  deep  and  such  opposite  feelings  are 
entertained,  I  shall  simply  indicate,  in  as  unemotional  and  external 
way  as  I  can,  the  view  that  seems  best  to  explain  the  attitude  of  the 
State  to  the  Christians.  The  Church  is  here  treated  not  as  a  reli- 
gious body,  but  as  a  practical  organisation  for  social  duties  and 
needs,  and  as  brought  in  contact  with  the  State. 


362         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Church  as  to  its  own  origin.  The  Church  appears  as  an 
old  woman,  "  because  she  was  created  first  of  all,  and  for 
her  sake  was  the  world  made."  The  Church  was  to 
Hermas  a  well-articulated  organism,  and  not  a  collection 
of  individual  Christians  with  no  bond  of  union  beyond 
certain  common  rites  and  beliefs  ;  yet  its  organisation  was 
not  constructed  by  the  early  Christians,  but  was  a  pre- 
existing, Divinely  created  idea,  independent  of  the  existence 
of  actual  Christians  to  embody  it  in  the  world. 

But  all  the  more  surely  and  truly  were  the  Christians 
under  the  influence  of  Roman  administrative  forms  and 
ideas,  that  they  were  entirely  unconscious  of  the  fact. 
The  secret  of  the  extraordinary  power  exerted  by  the 
Roman  Government  in  the  provinces  lay  in  the  subtle  way 
in  which  the  skilful  administrative  devices,  shown  by  it  for 
the  first  time  to  the  provinces,  filled  and  dominated  the 
minds  of  the  provincials.  After  the  Roman  system  was 
known,  its  influence  took  possession  of  the  public  mind, 
and  is  apparent  both  in  every  new  foundation  for  admini- 
strative purposes,  and  even  in  the  gradual  modification  of 
the  previously  existing  organisations.  Those  institutions 
of  the  Church  which  belonged  to  its  Jewish  origin  steadily 
became  more  and  more  Roman  in  character.  Roman 
ideas  were  in  the  air,  and,  had  the  Church  not  been  in- 
fluenced by  them,  it  would  have  been  neither  vigorous  nor 
progressive.  After  all,  Hermas'  view  and  the  one  here 
stated  differ  little  from  each  other.  We  are  trying  to 
express  the  same  fact  ;  but  in  these  pages  the  Divine  is 
treated  as  a  development,  whereas  to  Hermas  it  was 
immutable  and  eternal,  like  a  Platonic  idea. 

Like  the  Empire,  the  Church  fully  recognised  the  duty 
of  the  community  to  see  that  all  its  members  were  fed ; 


Xy.    Cause  and  Extent  of  Persecution.     363 

and  this  was  one  of  the  earliest  forms  in  which  the  ques- 
tion of  practical  organisation  began  to  press  on  it 
(Acts  vi.).  Further  organisation  was  required  when  many 
communities  existed  in  different  lands,  all  considering 
themselves  as  a  brotherhood.  Such  separation  involved, 
in  the  course  of  natural  growth,  the  development  of  differ- 
ences of  custom  and  opinion  in  details  ;  and  in  life  details 
are  often  of  more  apparent  value  than  principles.  Ques- 
tions arise  in  the  relation  of  community  with  community. 
If  these  are  not  settled  with  judgment  and  skill  permanent 
differences  spring  up.  In  the  actual  development  of  a 
Church  scattered  wide  over  the  world,  the  officials  whose 
duty  it  was  to  guide  the  communications  between  the  com- 
munities necessarily  played  a  decisive  part  in  framing  the 
organisation  through  which  the  brotherhood  developed 
into  the  Church.  As  it  was  completed  in  its  main  elements 
by  A.D.  170,  the  organisation  of  the  Church  may  be 
described  thus  : — 

1.  Each  individual  community  was  ruled  by  a  gradation 
of  officials,  at  whose  head  was  the  bishop  ;  and  the  bishop 
represented  the  community. 

2.  All  communities  were  parts  of  a  unity,  which  was 
co-extensive  with  the  [Roman  ?]  world.  A  name  for  this 
unity,  the  Universal  or  Catholic  Church,  is  first  found  in 
Ignatius,  and  the  idea  was  familiar  to  a  pagan  writer  like 
Celsus  (perhaps  16 1-9  A.D.). 

3.  Councils  determined  and  expressed  the  common 
views  of  a  number  of  communities. 

4.  Any  law  of  the  Empire  which  conflicted  with  the 
principles  of  the  Church  must  give  way. 

5.  All  laws  of  the  Empire  which  were  not  in  conflict 
with  the  religion  of  the  Church  were  to  be  obeyed. 


364         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

In  this  completed  organisation  the  bishops  were  esta- 
blished as  the  ruling  heads  of  the  several  parts,  divided  in 
space  but  not  in  idea,  which  constituted  the  Church  in  the 
Roman  world.  The  history  of  this  organisation  is,  to  a 
great  extent,  the  history  of  the  episcopal  power.  The 
bishops  soon  became  the  directors  of  the  Church  as  a 
party  struggling  against  the  Government.  I  should  gladly 
have  avoided  this  peculiarly  difficult  part  of  the  subject, 
but  it  is  not  possible  to  discuss  the  relations  of  Church  and 
State  without  showing  the  nature  of  these  typical  officers 
in  the  proscribed  organisation.  The  view  which  I  take  is, 
that  the  central  idea  in  the  development  of  the  episcopal 
office  lay  in  the  duty  of  each  community  to  maintain  com- 
munication with  other  communities.  The  officials  who 
performed  this  duty  became  the  guardians  of  unity. 
They  acquired  importance  first  in  the  universal  Church  ; 
and  thereafter,  partly  in  virtue  of  this  extra-congregational 
position,  partly  through  other  causes,  they  became  the  heads 
of  the  individual  communities. 

Such  a  vast  organisation  of  a  perfectly  new  kind,  with 
no  analogy  in  previously  existing  institutions,  was  naturally 
slow  in  development.  We  regard  the  ideas  underlying 
it  as  originating  with  Paul.  The  first  step  was  taken  when 
he  crossed  Taurus ;  the  next  more  conscious  step  was 
the  result  of  the  trial  in  Corinth,  after  which  his  thought 
developed  from  the  stage  of  Thessalonians  to  that  of  Gala- 
tians,  Corinthians,  and  Romans.  The  critical  stage  was 
passed  when  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  annihilated  all 
possibility  of  a  localised  centre  for  Christianity,  and  made 
it  clear  that  the  centralisation  of  the  Church  could  reside 
only  in  an  idea — viz.,  a  process  of  intercommunication, 
union,  and  brotherhood  (p.  288). 


XV.    Cause  and  Extent  of  Persecution.      365 

It  would  be  hardly  possible  to  exaggerate  the  share 
which  frequent  intercourse  from  a  very  early  stage  between 
the  separate  congregations  had  in  moulding  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Church.  Most  of  the  documents  in  the  New 
Testament  are  products  and  monuments  of  this  intercourse  ; 
all  attest  in  numberless  details  the  vivid  interest  which  the 
scattered  communities  took  in  one  another.  From  the  first 
the  Christian  idea  was  to  annihilate  the  separation  due  to 
space,  and  hold  the  most  distant  brother  as  near  as  the 
nearest.  Clear  consciousness  of  the  importance  of  this  idea 
first  appears  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles,*  and  is  still  stronger 
in  writings  of  A.D.  80-100,  as  i  Peter  and  Clement.  In 
these  works  of  the  first  century  the  idea  is  expressed  in  a 
simpler  form  than  in  writings  of  the  second  century,  where 
it  has  a  stereotyped  and  conventionalised  character,  with  a 
developed  and  regulated  appearance. 

The  close  relations  between  different  congregations  is 
brought  into  strong  relief  by  the  circumstances  disclosed 
in  the  letters  of  Ignatius  :  the  welcome  extended  every- 
where to  him  ;  the  loving  messages  sent  when  he  was 
writing  to  other  churches  {Rom.  ix.)  ;  the  deputations  sent 
from  churches  off  his  road  to  meet  him  and  convoy  him 
{Ro7n.  ix.,  etc.)  ;  the  rapidity  with  which  news  of  his  pro- 


•  Its  prominence  in  them  is  one  of  the  many  characteristics  which 
distinguish  them  from  the  older  Epistles,  and  which  would  make  us 
gladly  date  these  Epistles  ten  or  twelve  years  after  A.D.  67  (later  they 
cannot  be,  on  account  of  the  undeveloped  type  of  persecution  which 
appears  in  them).  But  it  does  not  appear  worth  while  to  sacrifice 
the  tradition,  and  the  claim  they  make  to  be  the  work  of  Paul,  for 
the  sake  of  a  few  years.  We  must  accept  the  difficulty  involved  in 
their  developed  character.  There  is  no  person  who  is  so  likely  to 
have  originated  these  ideas  as  Paul,  in  the  intense  activity  of  his 
later  years,  A.D.  64-67. 


366         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

gress  was  sent  round,  so  that  deputations  from  Ephesus, 
Magnesia,  and  Tralles  were  ready  to  visit  him  in  Smyrna ; 
the  news  from  Antioch  which  reached  him  in  Troas,  but 
which  was  unknown  to  him  in  Smyrna  ;  the  directions 
which  he  gave  to  call  a  council  of  the  church  in  Smyrna, 
and  send  a  messenger  *  to  congratulate  the  church  in 
Antioch ;  the  knowledge  that  his  fate  is  known  to  and  is 
engaging  the  efforts  of  the  church  in  Rome.  Such  details 
in  the  letters  and  in  other  authorities  presuppose  regular 
intercommunication  and  union  of  the  closest  kind  along  the 
great  routes  across  the  Empire.  Lucian  was  familiar  with 
this  intercourse  among  the  Christians ;  and  his  language 
about  it  implies  that  it  seemed  to  him  the  crowning  proof 
of  the  detestable  and  perverted  energy  of  the  sect.f  Light- 
foot  has  correctly  emphasised  this  class  of  facts,  but  he 
does  not  sufficiently  bring  out  they  were  the  regular  and 
characteristic  practice  of  the  Christians  ;  hence  he  quotes 
the  passages  of  Lucian  as  proof  that  Lucian  was  acquainted 
with  the  story  of  Ignatius,  But  Lucian  might  have  gained 
his  knowledge  from  many  other  similar  incidents  as  well  as 
from  the  story  of  Ignatius  ;  and  the  only  safe  inference 
from  his  words  is,  that  the  picture  of  life  given  in  the 
letters  of  Ignatius  is  true. 

This  close  connection  could  not  be  maintained  by  mere 
unregulated  voluntary  efforts  ;  organised  action  alone  was 
able  to  keep  it  up.  The  early  system  of  government  by  the 
presiding  Council  of  Elders  was  slowly  developed  to  cope 
with  the  pressing  need  ;  and  the  episcopal  organisation  was 
thus  gradually  elaborated. 

*  Smyrn.y  11 ;  Philad.,  10 ;  Polyc,  7.  He  is  called  deoTrpea-^fVTrjs, 
Qeohpofios. 
t  De  Morte  Peregrini,  12  and  41. 


Xy.    Cause  and  Extent  of  Persecution.     367 

The  word  episkopos  means  overseer.  Originally,  when 
the  deliberative  council  of  elders  resolved  to  perform  some 
action,  they  would  naturally  direct  one  of  their  number  to 
superintend  it  This  presbyter  was  an  episkopos  for  the 
occasion.  Any  presbyter  might  be  also  an  episkopos^  and 
the  terms  were  therefore  applied  to  the  same  persons,  and 
yet  conveyed  essentially  different  meanings.  The  episkopos 
appointed  to  perform  any  duty  was  necessarily  single,  for 
the  modern  idea  of  a  committee  was  unknown  ;  *  any 
presbyter  might  become  an  episkopos  for  an  occasion,  yet 
the  latter  term  conveyed  an  idea  of  singleness  and  of 
executive  authority  which  was  wanting  to  the  former. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  idea  of  an  order  of  episkopoi 
at  this  stage,  like  the  order  of  presbyters,  is  self-contradic- 
tory. The  episkopos  was  necessarily  single,  and  yet  there 
might  be  many  episkopoi  for  distinct  duties.  Such  appears 
to  be  the  natural  interpretation  of  the  term,  as  it  was  used 
in  ancient  life. 

It  was  natural  that  proved  aptness  and  power  in  an 
individual  presbyter  should  lead  to  his  having  executive 
duties  frequently  assigned  to  him.  The  Imperial  idea 
was  in  the  air  ;  and  the  tried  episkopos  tended  to  become 
permanent,  and  to  concentrate  executive  duties  in  his 
hands.  The  process  was  gradual,  and  no  violent  change 
took  place.  The  authority  of  the  episkopos  was  long  a 
delegated  authority,  and  his  influence  dependent  mainly  on 
personal  qualities.     In  such  a  gradual  process  it  is  natural 

•  Bodies  of  3,  5,  10,  or  more  officers  were  frequent  in  Rome  ; 
but  they  were  not  committees.  Each  individual  possessed  the 
full  powers  of  the  whole  body.  The  act  of  one  was  authoritative  as 
the  act  of  all ;  each  could  thwart  the  power  of  his  colleagues ;  no 
idea  of  acting  by  vote  of  the  majority  existed. 


368        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

that  the  position  of  episkopoi  should  vary  much,  that  the 
position  of  the  same  individual  should  be  susceptible  of 
being  understood  and  described  differently  by  different 
observers,  and  that  the  episkopos  became  permanent  in  fact 
before  the  principle  of  permanence  was  admitted. 

The  hospitality  which  is  assigned  as  a  duty  to  the 
episkopos  in  i  Tim.  iii.  i  ff.,  Titus  i.  5  fif.,  was  closely  connected 
with  the  maintenance  of  external  relations  (see  p.  288)  ;  and 
the  composition  of  the  letters  sent  by  one  community  to 
another  was  also  assigned  to  him.  Hence  a  copy  of  the 
message  given  to  Hermas  was  ordered  to  be  sent  to  Clement, 
who  should  send  it  to  foreign  cities,  for  to  him  had  been 
entrusted  the  duty  (viz.,  of  communicating  with  other  com- 
munities) ;*  while  Hermas,  with  the  presbyters  who  preside 
over  the  Church  (among  whom  Clement  is,  as  we  believe, 
included),  was  to  read  it  to  the  Romans.  This  duty  was 
likely  to  be  permanently  assigned  to  the  same  individual, 
for  uniformity  of  tone  could  not  otherwise  be  secured. 

The  scanty  and  unsatisfactory  evidence  of  the  first  cen- 
tury points  to  the  practical  permanence  of  the  episkopos  as 
already  usual,  but  is  inconsistent  with  the  idea  that  the 
episkopos  was  considered  as  separate  in  principle  from  his 
co-presbyters  (as  he  continued  for  centuries  to  term 
them).  He  was  only  a  presbyter  on  whom  certain  duties 
had  been  imposed.  There  was  in  practice  one  permanent 
episkopos  in  a  community,  when  i  Peter  ii.  25  was  written, 
and  when  the  messages  were  sent  to  the  angeloi  of  the 
seven  Asian  Churches ;  but  the  episkopos  was  very  far  re- 

•  Vis..,  ii.,  4,  3,  I  cannot  doubt  that,  to  a  Roman  Christian  of  the 
period,  Clement  must  mean  the  famous  Clement.  Either  Hermas 
wrote  before  Clement's  death,  or  he  intended  that  his  booh  should 
appear  to  be  of  that  period. 


XJ^.    Catise  and  Extent  of  Persecution.     369 

moved  from  the  monarchical  bishop  of  A.D.  170,  and  we  find 
not  a  trace  to  suggest  that  he  exercised  any  authority  ex 
officio  within  the  community.  He  represented  it  in  certain 
cases  :  he  wrote  in  its  name ;  but  the  words  purported  to 
be  spoken  by  the  community.  Letters  addressed  to  it  were 
sent  to  him  ;  but  the  contents  referred  solely  to  the  com- 
munity, and  made  no  allusion  to  the  episkopos.  His 
position  was  ostensibly  a  humble  one  within  the  com- 
munity ;  and  yet  its  real  influence  and  its  future  possibili- 
ties must  have  been  obvious  to  him  that  had  eyes  to  see 
beneath  the  superficial  aspect*  The  importance  of  the 
episkopos  would  be  estimated  by  a  writer  according  to  the 
degree  in  which  his  attention  was  occupied  with  the  unity 
of  the  Church.f  In  Hermas  the  Church  is  thought  of  rather 
as  distinguished  from  the  wicked.  He  divides  the  world,  one 
might  almost  say,  into  Christian  and  non-Christian,  and 
heretics  are  to  him  mistaken  teachers,  as  they  are  to  Paul 
in  Philip,  i.  15-18.    The  organisation  and  practical  mainte- 


•  Such  is  the  nature  of  the  ofiBce  as  it  appears  in  Apoc.  i.  i6,  20. 
Spitta  considers  that  the  interpretation  of  the  stars  as  bishops 
belongs  to  the  revision,  90-112,  not  to  the  original  Christian  docu- 
ment, 60  A.D.  His  arguments,  p.  37  f.,  are  founded  on  a  misap- 
prehension of  the  delicate  contrasts  in  the  position  of  the  episkopoi. 
Again,  when  Ignatius  writes  to  Polycarp  a  private  letter,  he,  in  the 
middle  of  it,  begins  to  address  the  whole  community,  being  accus- 
tomed to  regard  Polycarp  as  its  representative.  Ignatius  does  not 
write  as  bishop,  but  as  an  individual,  and  in  his  own  name  :  the 
church  in  Antioch  has  now  no  bishop. 

f  From  Clement  alone  the  permanence  of  his  duties  could  not 
be  inferred ;  but  it  is  the  natural  inference  from  a  comparison  of 
Clement  and  Hermas'  language  about  him.  But  it  would  be  as 
wrong  to  draw  from  Clement,  as  it  would  be  to  draw  from  Polycarp's 
letter  to  the  Philippians  with  its  similar  language  (see  Lightfoot, 
Jgnat.,  i.,  p.  594),  any  inference  against  the  permanent  concentration 
of  episcopal  duties  in  the  hands  of  an  individual. 

24 


370        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

nance  of  unity  is  not  a  thought  that  weighs  much  with  him  ; 
and  he  merely  speaks  in  a  general  way  of  the  heads  of  the 
community,  ol  irporfjovyb^voi  tt}?  eKK\r](Tia<i. 

The  language  of  Ignatius  is  more  developed ;  though 
there  is,  as  a  rule,  some  tendency  to  read  him  by  the  light 
of  later  facts.  He  is  not  a  historian,  describing  facts  ;  he 
is  a  preacher,  giving  advice  as  to  what  ought  to  be.  He 
lays  most  stress  on  the  points  which  he  conceived  to  be 
lacking.  He  speaks  with  the  forethought  of  a  legislator, 
and  the  monition  of  a  prophet,  and  he  has  caught  with 
marvellous  prescience  the  line  of  development  which  the 
Church  must  follow.  And  surely,  if  ever  man  was  likely 
to  forget  self  entirely,  and  to  be  filled  with  v/ider  thought, 
it  was  Ignatius,  when  life  for  him  was  over,  and  with  full 
consciousness  he  was  about  to  sacrifice  it  for  the  Church. 
He  was  deeply  touched  by  the  deputations  that  visited 
him  ;  he  realised  the  power  that  a  united  Church  might 
exercise  ;  and  he  saw  that  still  closer  organisation,  through 
fuller  recognition  of  the  bishops'  power,  was  needed.  The 
episcopal  authority  was  to  him  the  centre  of  order  and 
the  guarantee  of  unity  in  the  Church.*  Except  through 
the  episkopoi,  no  common  policy  could  be  carried  out.  He 
insists,  then,  that  the  bishop  should  guide  the  community ; 
but  he  says  that  this  principle  is  a  special  revelation,!  and 


*  Lightfoot  has  rightly  urged  that  Ignatius  did  not  think  (like 
Irenaeus)  that  the  bishops'  duty  was  to  preserve  pure  and  transmit 
faithfully  the  doctrine  of  the  Church,  Jgnat.,  i.,  p.  382,  ed  I.,  396, 
ed.  II.     "  Unity  "  prompts  his  words. 

t  Philad.,  7  :  "I  learnt  it  not  from  flesh  of  man ;  it  was  the 
preaching  of  the  Spirit,  who  spake  on  this  wise  :  Do  nothing  without 
the  bishop  .  .  .  cherish  union,"  etc.  It  is  clear  that  disunion  and 
disobedience  prevailed  in  Philadelphia. 


Xy.    Ca2ise  and  Extent  of  Persecution.     371 

his  reiteration  seems  a  proof  that  urgency  was  necessary.* 
I  can  find  in  Ignatius  no  proof  that  the  bishops  were  re- 
garded as  ex  officio  supreme  even  in  Asia,  where  he  was 
evidently  much  impressed  by  the  good  organisation  of  the 
Churches.  His  words  are  quite  consistent  with  the  view 
that  the  respect  actually  paid  in  each  community  to  the 
bishop  depended  on  his  individual  character,  f 

The  really  striking  development  implied  by  Ignatius 
is,  that  a  much  clearer  distinction  between  bishop  and 
presbyter  had  now  become  generally  recognised.  This 
distinction  was  ready  to  become  a  difference  of  rank  and 
order ;  and  he  first  recognised  that  this  was  so.  Others 
looked  at  the  bishops  under  prepossessions  derived  from 
the  past :  he  estimated  them  in  view  of  what  they  might 
become  in  the  future. 

For  our  purpose,  the  important  point  is  the  aspect 
which  the  institution  would  wear  in  the  estimation  of  the 
Emperors.  It  was  illegal ;  it  was  a  device  for  doing  more 
efficiently  what  the  State  forbade  to  be  done  at  all.  How 
far  its  character  was  known  to  the  Government,  we  can- 
not tell ;  but  that  the  Emperors  studied  this  political 
phenomenon — the  Christian  organisation — I  cannot,  in 
the  nature  of  the  Roman  administration,  doubt.  That 
they  must  condemn  an  organisation  such  as  we  have 
described,  judging  it  by  the  fundamental  principle  of 
Roman  government,  is   certain.     That   the   policy  of  the 

•  Cp.  Dr.  Sanday's  true  remark,  Expositor,  December,  1888,  p.  326, 
t  We  notice  that  the  Ephesians  are  urged  to  meet  together,  and 
to  obey  bishop  and  presbyters  (20) ;  but  they  had  not  been  in  the 
habit  of  meeting  often  enough  (13).  Advice  implies  fault.  Tralles 
is  praised  for  obeying  its  bishop,  and  advised  also  to  obey  the 
presbyters 


372        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Flavian  Emperors  is  inexplicable  in  any  other  way  seems 
equally  certain.  An  organisation,  strong,  even  if  only  rudi- 
mentary, is  required  to  explain  the  Imperial  history ;  and 
such  an  organisation  is  attested  by  the  Christian  docu- 
ments. Trajan  found  himself  unable  to  resist  the  evidence 
that  this  organisation  was  dangerous  and  illegal  ;  yet  his 
instinctive  perception  of  wider  issues  prevented  him  from 
logically  carrying  out  the  principle.  All  sides  of  the  evi- 
dence work  in  with  one  another,  and  all  are  derived  from 
the  simplest  and  fullest  interpretation  of  the  documents 
as  they  lie  before  us.  Christianity  was  proscribed,  not  as 
a  religion,  but  as  interfering  with  that  organisation  of 
society  which  the  Empire  inculcated  and  protected. 

The  question  whether  the  Christian  sect  was  treasonable 
was  not  first  raised  under  the  Flavian  Emperors.  It  had 
been  agitated  from  an  early  period,  and  was  naturally 
revived  on  every  occasion  when  the  character  of  the  sect 
formed  a  subject  of  consideration  to  the  Government. 

The  earliest  charge  against  Christians  was  that  of  setting 
up  a  king  of  their  own  in  opposition  to  the  Emperor. 
Jesus  was  condemned  on  this  ground  ;  and  it  reappears 
in  Acts  xvii.  7.  Eusebius  mentions  that  a  similar  charge 
against  the  grandchildren  of  Judas,  the  Lord's  brother, 
was  investigated  by  Domitian,  and  dismissed.* 

Again,  according  to  the  old  Roman  view,  it  was  justifiable, 
and  even  required,  that  the  magistrates  should  proceed 
actively   against  Romans   who  had    deserted  the  national 

*  Euseb.,  H.  E.,  iii.,  20,  gives  it  on  the  authority  of  Hegesippus, 
which  carries  it  back  to  the  second  century.  This  is  a  sign  that 
the  Christian  sect  was  studied  by  the  Imperial  Government.  It 
was  found  to  involve  no  serious  danger,  but  to  embody  a  dangerous 
principle. 


XV.    Cause  and  Extent  of  Persecutio7i.     373 

religion,*  and  also  against  those  who  had  been  concerned 
in  converting  them.  But,  in  fact,  it  would  appear  that  this 
was  not  a  frequent  ground  on  which  to  found  proceedings 
against  the  Christians.  The  feeling  of  pride  in  Roman 
citizenship  and  the  exclusiveness  against  non-Roman  rites, 
became  much  weaker  as  the  citizenship  was  widened. 
Moreover,  religious  feeling  in  the  Empire  was  very  weak 
during  the  first  century.  The  attempted  revival  of 
the  national  religion  under  Augustus  was  not  lasting. 
Tiberius  preserved  the  tradition  of  Augustus'  policy  ;  but 
the  mad  sacrilege  of  Caligula  must  have  weakened  it 
fatally.  Under  Domitian,  however,  the  revival  of  the 
national  worship  was  a  marked  feature  of  the  Imperial 
policy. 

While  the  sect  was  condemned,  it  did  not  appear 
sufficiently  important  to  require  any  special  measures  to 
put  it  down.  The  Government  was  content  to  lay  down 
the  principle  that  Christians  should  be  dealt  with  by  all 
governors  under  the  general  instructions  (see  p.  208).  But 
the  Roman  administration  maintained  a  very  small  staff 
of  officials,  and  the  public  safety  was  very  insufficiently 
attended  to  (see  p.  24).  Brigandage  was  rife,  and  brigands 
were  followed  in  a  very  spiritless  and  variable  way.  Chris- 
tians, who  were  classed  along  with  brigands,  profited  by 
the  remissness  of  the  Government.  In  practice  the  execu- 
tion of  the  general  principle  would  greatly  depend  on 
popular  co-operation  ;  and  though  popular  feeling  was 
strongly  against  the  Christians,  popular  action  was  of  a 

•  Momtnsen  quotes  as  examples  the  expulsion  of  Jews  from  Rome 
by  Hispallus, /r<K/<?r,  B.C.  139,  by  Tiberius,  and  by  Claudius,  the 
action  against  the  Bacchanalia,  the  expulsion  of  the  worship  of  Isis 
beyond  the  walls  of  Rcme,  etc.     See  Histor.  Zft.^  xxviii.,  402  fif. 


374        1^^^^  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

very  uncertain  character  (see  p.  325).  The  proscription 
exercised  a  strong  influence  on  the  Church,  causing 
it  to  unite  still  more  closely  through  mutual  sympathy 
and  the  tendency  among  the  persecuted  to  help  one 
another;  but  it  was  unable  to  diminish  seriously  the 
numbers  of  the  Christians,  It  merely  made  the  Church 
stronger,  more  self-reliant,  and  more  spirited  (pp.  296,  314). 


Note. — Many  Christian  confessors  went  to  extremes  in  showing 
their  contempt  and  hatred  for  their  judges;  and  the  Acta  fully 
explain  the  indignation  which  their  conduct  roused  in  Pliny,  con- 
scious as  he  was  of  his  own  lofty  motives,  and  of  the  wisdom  of  the 
Imperial  policy.  Their  answers  to  plain  questions  were  evasive  and 
indirect ;  they  lectured  Roman  dignitaries  as  if  the  latter  were  the 
criminals  and  they  themselves  the  judges ;  and  they  even  used 
violent  reproaches  and  coarse  insulting  gestures.  A  Roman  court 
presented  a  terrible  aspect,  for  torture  in  court  was  a  regular  part 
of  procedure,  and  the  actual  surroundings  were  a  grim  commentary 
on  Pliny's  threats  {sup;plicia  minatus :  Le  Plant,  Actes,  p.  118). 
Christians  who  were  not  terrified  into  recantation  must  have  been 
usually  thrown  into  extreme  excitement.  A  master  of  human  feeling 
has  described  the  effect  produced  on  a  singularly  cool,  intrepid, 
self-restrained  Scot — Henry  Morton — by  his  unjust  trial  before 
Claverhouse.  But  the  racial  character  of  these  Christians  was  not 
cool  and  self-restrained,  but  enthusiastic  and  able  to  see  only  one 
side  of  a  case.  Exceptions  occur:  Polycarp's  gentle  dignity  and 
undisturbed  calm  are  contrasted  by  the  narrator  with  the  nervous 
and  hysterical  conduct  of  others,  and  seem  to  him  to  be  on  the 
same  lofty  plane  of  feeling  as  the  action  of  Jesus.  Southern  races 
are  prone  to  licence  of  speech  and  gesture,  by  which  they  relieve 
the  emotions  which  among  us  are  often  relieved  by  profane  or  inane 
expletives  (a  waggoner  will  attribute  to  the  female  relatives  of  his 
waggon,  when  it  bumps  over  a  stone,  conduct  such  as  Catullus 
attributes  to  the  female  connections  of  his  enemy  Mamurra).  M. 
Le  Plant,  in  some  excellent  remarks  on  the  subject.  I.e.  89  f.,  quotes 
the  rude  and  violent  language  of  Jerome  and  Gregory  Naz.  against 
Rufinus,  Vigilantius,  and  Julian.  Drilling  of  Christians  in  the  single 
answer  to  all  questions  of  a  judge  is  mentioned  (Le  Plant,  p.  290). 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  ACTA   OF  PAUL  AND   THEKLA. 

I. — The  Acta  in  their  Extant  Form. 

THE  Acta  Pauli  et  TheklcB  is  the  only  extant  literary 
work  which  throws  light  on  the  character  of  popular 
Christianity  in  Asia  Minor  during  the  period  that  we  have 
been  studying.  Thekla  became  the  type  of  the  female 
Christian  teacher,  preacher,  and  baptiser,  and  her  story  was 
quoted  as  early  as  the  second  century  as  a  justification 
of  the  right  of  women  to  teach  and  to  baptise  ;  and 
Tertullian  seeks  to  invalidate  its  authority*  by  pointing 
out  that  the  presbyter  who  confessed  having  constructed 
the  work  from  love  of  Paul,  was  deposed  from  his  office. 
So  late  as  the  ninth  century,  Nicetas  of  Paphlagonia 
mentions  that  Thekla  baptised  in  Isauria,  but  that  this 
was  a  special  privilege  reserved  to  her  alone  among  women. 
Respect  for  and  worship  of  Thekla  was  then  rather  op- 
posed to  the  practice  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  respect  of 
women  ;  but  it  was  far  too  deep-seated  in  the  popular  mind 
to  be  disturbed.  But  the  objectionable  features  of  the  tale 
could  be  explained  away  (as  they  were  by  Nicetas) ;  and 
attention  was  directed  more  to  features  of  the  tale  which 

•  Tertullian,  de  Bapt.,  17  (about  195  A.D.).  It  is  generally  held 
that  Tertullian  refers  to  the  work  which  has  been  preserved  to  us ; 
but  in  Acta  Sanctorum,  September  23rd,  pp.  550  f.,  the  extant 
Acta  is  treated  as  a  forged  compilation,  made  in  the  fourth  century 
from  the  work  known  to  Tertullian. 

375 


37^        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

were  more  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  later  Catholicism. 
Finally,  in  process  of  time,  the  objectionable  features  were 
toned  down  and  eliminated,  so  that  in  the  extant  MSS. 
not  a  single  trace  remains  of  Thekla's  administering  the 
rite  of  baptism  to  others.  To  render  this  work  useful  as 
an  authority  for  the  feeling  of  the  second  century,  we  must 
then  try  to  restore  the  character  which  it  had  when  Ter- 
tullian  read  it. 

The  extant  Acta,  of  which  numerous  MSS.  are  known  to 
exist,*  including  versions  in  Greek,  Latin,  Syriac,  Arabic, 
and  Slavonic,  represent  on  the  whole  one  single  document, 
though  differences  far  beyond  mere  textual  variety  exist 
between  the  different  versions  and  MSS.  The  general 
tendency  of  recent  criticism  (see,  e.g.,  Lipsius,  die  apokry- 
pJien  Apostelgesch.,  ii.,  p.  424,  to  which,  and  to  his  edition 
of  the  text,  it  is  needless  to  say  how  much  I  am  indebted  ; 
Lightfoot,  Ignat.  and  Polyc,  i.,  p.  62171. ;  Dr.  Gwynn  in 
Smith's  Diet.  Christ.  Biog.,  iv.,  pp.  882  ff.,  etc.),  is  to  place 
this  document  in  the  latter  part  of  the  second  century. 
To  judge  on  such  a  point  we  may  best  begin  by  a  brief 
analysis  of  the  document. 

Thekla  belonged  to  one  of  the  noblest  families  in  Iconium. 
Her  mother  was  called  Theokleia,  which  seems  to  be  only  a 
Grecised  form  of  the  same  name  ;  neither  father  nor  brother 
nor  sister  has  any  part  in  the  extant  tale.  When  Paul  came 
to  Iconium  he  lived  in  the  house  of  Onesiphorus,t  and  his 
preaching  was  audible  to  Thekla,  who  sat  at  a  window  in 
her  mother's  house,  and  refused  to  stir  from  it  or  to  take 

*  Professor  Rendel  Harris  told  me  that  he  had  seen  at  Mount 
Sinai  eight  or  nine  MSS.     None  have  been  collated, 

t  On  his  journey  to  Iconium  and  welcome  by  Onesiphorus,  see 
above,  p.  31.     Titus  intimated  Paul's  intended  visit 


XVI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.      377 

food  No  entreaties  moved  her.  Her  betrothed  lover, 
Thamyris,  after  vainly  trying  to  bring  her  back  to  her 
ordinary  mode  of  life,  went  out  to  observe  Paul.  Two 
false  friends  of  Paul,  Demas  and  Hermogenes,  advised 
him  to  accuse  Paul  of  being  a  Christian,  and  next  day  he 
took  Paul  before  the  proconsul,  Castelius,  and  accused  him 
of  dissuading  women  from  marriage — i.e.,  of  tampering 
with  the  customs  of  society.  Castelius  remanded  Paul 
for  further  examination,  and  in  the  night  he  was  visited 
secretly  by  Thekla.  She  was  found  at  his  feet  next 
morning  by  Theokleia  and  Thamyris,  Both  culprits  were 
taken  before  Castelius,  who  ordered  Paul  to  be  scourged 
and  expelled  from  the  city,  and  Thekla,  as  her  mother 
suggested  and  urged,  to  be  burned.  Men  and  women 
vied  in  preparing  the  pyre  to  burn  Thekla  in  the  theatre. 
She,  after  having  a  vision  of  the  Lord  in  the  appearance 
of  Paul,  was  put  on  the  pyre  ;  but  the  flames  did  not  burn 
her,  and  a  storm  came  on,  quenched  the  fire,  and  killed 
many  of  the  spectators.* 

Paul  and  the  family  of  Onesiphorus  spent  many  days 
fasting  in  a  tomb  on  the  road  that  leads  to  Daphne.  When 
they  were  famishing  Paul  took  off  his  coat,  and  sent  a 
slave  into  the  city  to  buy  bread  ;  the  slave  met  Thekla  in 
the  street  (her  intermediate  adventures  are  not  mentioned), 
and  brought  her  to  Paul.  She  wished  to  cut  her  hair  and 
follow  Paul,  but  he  refused  to  permit  this.  She  then  asked 
him  to  baptise  her,  which  he  refused  to  do. 

Paul  and  Thekla  then  went  to  Antioch.  The  high-priest 
of  Syria,  Alexander,  saw  them  as  they  entered,  and,  struck 


•  The  versions  vary.     Some  read,  "  so  that  many  died  ";  others, 
"  so  that  many  were  in  danger  of  death." 


37^         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

with  passion  for  Thekla,  proposed  to  purchase  her  from 
Paul,  who  replied,  "  I  do  not  know  the  woman  of  whom 
thou  speakest,  nor  is  she  mine."  Paul  at  this  point  dis- 
appears from  the  action  ;  Thekla  was  left  alone,  Alexander 
put  his  arm  round  her  and  kissed  her ;  and  she  tore  his 
garment  and  the  crown  which  he  wore  on  his  head,  Alex- 
ander took  her  before  the  proconsul,  who  condemned  her 
to  be  thrown  to  wild  beasts.  General  pity  was  felt  among 
the  people,  and  the  women  loudly  exclaimed,  "  Evil  judg- 
ment !  impious  judgment !  "  Thekla  asked  to  be  safe  from 
personal  violence  till  her  death  ;  and  a  rich  lady,  Queen 
Tryphaena,  took  her  in  charge,  and  became  much  attached 
to  her,  as  come  to  replace  her  lost  daughter.  On  the  day 
of  the  preliminary  procession  Thekla  was  fastened  on  the 
back  of  a  lioness,  which  licked  her  feet.  On  the  following 
day  took  place  the  exhibition  of  beasts  {ycnatid).  Try- 
phaena long  refused  to  give  up  Thekla,  but  was  at  last 
obliged  to  let  the  soldiers  take  her  away.  In  the  arena, 
where  she  was  exposed  nude,  except  for  a  cincture,  the 
lioness  crouched  at  her  feet,  and  fought  for  her,  killing  a 
bear  and  a  lion,  and  dying  in  her  defence,  A  leopard 
which  attacked  her  burst  asunder.*  Then  other  beasts 
came  against  her,  and  she  saw  a  trench  full  of  water,  and 
jumped  in,  saying,  "  I  baptise  myself,"  f  The  people  were 
afraid  that  the  seals  would  eat  her,  and  the  proconsul  wept. 
But  a  cloud  of  fire  encompassed  her,  and  veiled  her  naked- 
ness from  the  gaze  of  the  crowd,  and  lightnings  killed  the 
seals.  The  other  animals  fell  into  a  stupor.  Then  she  was 
fastened  to  fierce  bulls,  who  were  goaded  to  madness  by 


•  The  leopard  occurs  only  in  the  Syriac  version, 

t  I  retain  purposely  the  inconsequence  of  the  incidents. 


XVI .    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.      379 

red-hot  irons  ;  but  the  fire  consumed  the  fastenings.  Here 
Tryphaena  fainted,  and  Thekla  was  released,  for  the  officials 
were  afraid  of  the  anger  of  the  Emperor,  who  was  a  relative 
of  Tryphaena.  Thekla  went  home  with  the  Queen,  refused, 
in  spite  of  her  entreaties,  to  remain  more  than  eight  days 
with  her,  converted  the  whole  household,  and  then,  modify-' 
ing  her  dress  to  look  like  a  man's,  she  went  to  Myra  to 
meet  Paul.  Thereafter  she  returned  to  Iconium,  offered  to 
give  her  mother  the  wealth  she  had  received  from  Try- 
phaena, and  then  went  to  Seleuceia. 

The  rest  of  her  life  is  variously  related.  Some  authorities 
merely  say  that  she  converted  many  and  died  at  Seleuceia  ; 
others  give  a  long  narrative  containing  some  very  feeble 
miracles ;  others  make  her  undertake  a  journey  to  Rome ; 
the  Syriac  and  Latin  versions  add  nothing. 

When  I  am  told  that  this  production  belongs  to  the  same 
age,  the  same  country,  the  same  period  of  thought  as  the 
Acta  of  Carpus  and  Papylus,  and  the  pathetic  letter  of  the 
Lugdunensians  to  the  churches  of  Asia  ;  that  it  is  only  a 
few  years  later  than  the  simple  and  noble  letter  of  the 
Smyrnseans,  which  so  moved  Scaliger  "  that  he  seemed  to 
be  no  longer  master  of  himself,"  *  I  confess  that  I  can 
only  wonder.  That  the  tale  contains  much  that  is  fine  is 
true  ;  but  it  also  contains  much  rubbish,  much  that  is 
glaringly  incongruous  with  the  finest  parts.  Still  more 
must  one  marvel  that  Zahn  should  be  willing  to  accept  it, 
with  a  few  omissions,  as  a  work  of  the  first  century. 

In  examining  this  work  we  shall  not  look  at  its  doctrinal 
aspect.  Obviously  a  work  which  has  been  exposed  to 
modifications  such  as   have  been  alluded  to   is  peculiarly 

•  I  take  the  quotation  from  Lightfoot,  Ignat.  and  Polyc.^  i.,  589  (604). 


380        The  Church  in  the  Rojnan  E7npire. 

liable  to  alteration  in  doctrinal  points  ;  and  dogma  therefore 
will  be  a  dangerous  guide  in  attempting  to  analyse  it.  The 
most  remarkable  disagreement  exists  between  those  who 
have  tried  to  estimate  precisely  its  dogmatic  position. 
Schlau  considers  that  the  Acta  is  a  polemic  by  a  Catholic 
writer  against  Gnostic  libertinism  :  works  such  as  i  Timothy , 
falsely  attributed  to  Paul,  had  discredited  him  in  Church 
circles,  and  the  writer's  object  was  to  present  a  picture  of 
Paul  according  to  the  Catholic  taste.  Lipsius  considers 
that  the  Acta  was  originally  a  Gnostic  composition,  designed 
to  inculcate  the  doctrine  of  absolute  virginity  and  abstinence 
even  from  marriage,  and  abstinence  from  the  use  of  flesh 
and  wine  ;  and  that  this  original  work  was  re-edited  in 
the  third  century  with  its  doctrines  toned  down  to  avoid 
offending  the  Catholic  taste  ;  he  refuses  to  believe  that 
there  were  at  the  time  in  question  any  Catholics  in  whose 
eyes  St.  Paul  was  discredited  (a  scepticism  in  which 
he  will  find  supporters),  or  that  the  Catholic  taste  desired 
that  an  apostle  should  be  of  the  type  attributed  in  the  Acta 
to  Paul.  Dr.  Gwynn  *  maintains  that  the  work  is  written 
by  an  orthodox  and  well-meaning,  but  not  clear-headed, 
author,  who  was  unable  to  understand  Paul's  doctrine. 

It  will  be  allowed  that  examination  of  the  Acta  from  the 
side  of  dogma  has  not  led  to  such  consensus  of  opinion  as 
to  preclude  a  different  theory  moving  on  a  different  plane 
of  thought,  and  founded  mainly  on  archaeological  argu- 
ments. It  may  conduce  to  clearness  to  begin  by  stating 
the  view  f  which  will  be  supported  in  the  ensuing  pages. 

*  In  Diet.  Christ.  Biogr.,  iv.,  891 :  he  quotes  Dr.  Salmon, 
Introduction  to  New  Testament,  ed.  ii.,  p.  420,  as  in  agreement. 

t  Several  points  in  it  have  been  maintained  by  others  ;  the  novelty 
lies  in  some  of  the  arguments  on  which  it  is  founded. 


XVI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.     381 

1.  Acta  Pauli  et  Theklce  goes  back  ultimately  to  a  docu- 
ment of  the  first  century. 

2.  The  original  document,  whose  contents  can  now  be 
only  conjectured,  mentioned  facts  of  history  and  antiquities 
which  had  probably  passed  quite  out  of  knowledge  before 
the  end  of  the  first  century,  and  which  have  been  redis- 
covered only  during  the  last  twenty  years. 

3.  This  document,  not  being  protected  by  canonical 
character  and  popular  veneration,  was  subjected  to  altera- 
tions, due  partly  to  change  of  views  in  the  Church,  partly  to 
the  growth  of  the  Thekla  legend,  which  was  a  myth  (tepo9 
\d709),  explaining  and  justifying  the  gradual  spread  of  the 
worship  of  Saint  Thekla. 

4.  The  scene  of  the  original  tale,  be  it  history,  or  romance, 
or  Dichtung  und  Wahrheit,  lay  in  Iconium  and  Antioch  of 
Pisidia,  and  the  action  begins  during  Paul's  first  visit  to 
Iconium. 

5.  In  the  versions  preserved  to  us,  Antioch  of  Syria  has 
been  substituted  for  Antioch  of  Pisidia  through  a  mis- 
understanding on  the  part  of  an  enlarger  and  editor,  who 
is  much  older  than  Basil  of  Seleuceia  (fifth  century). 

In  treating  this  subject  the  following  questions  must  be 
clearly  held  apart  from  each  other :  i.  Is  the  work,  as  we 
have  it,  explicable  as  the  production  of  a  single  author  ? 
No  difficulty  will  be  felt  in  answering  this  in  the  negative. 

2.  If  it  is  not  a  single  work  by  a  single  author,  what  are 
the  parts,  and  to  what  dates  are  they  to  be  assigned  ? 

3.  Do  the  earliest  parts  form,  or  appear  to  have  originally 
belonged  to,  a  complete  literary  work,  or  can  they  be 
explained  as  traditional  survivals  of  a  popular  legend  living 
on  in  the  popular  memory,  and  worked  up  into  literary 
form  at  a  later  time  ? 


382        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire ^ 

4.  If  the  earliest  parts  once  belonged  to  a  work  of 
literature,  what  historical  value  did  the  work  possess?  The 
existence  of  such  a  work,  and  its  truth  as  history,  are  distinct 
points. 

We  shall,  as  the  best  method  of  answering  the  last  three 
questions,  and  of  corroborating  the  answer  given  to  the  first, 
examine  the  work  minutely  to  discover  indications  of  the 
date  to  which  each  must  be  assigned. 

2.  Queen  Tryph^ena. 

In  the  action  of  the  romance  the  denoument  turns  on  the 
protection  granted  to  Thekla  by  Queen  Tryphaena,  who  be- 
came a  second  mother  to  the  Christian  virgin,  and  saved  her 
honour  and  her  life.  It  is  impossible  to  imagine  a  form  of 
the  romance  in  which  the  figure  of  the  queen  is  wanting ; 
she  must  have  been  a  character  in  the  tale  from  the  beginning. 

Von  Gutschmid  was  the  first  to  point  out  that  Queen 
Tryphaena  was  probably  a  historical  character;  He  appealed 
to  certain  rare  coins  of  the  kingdom  of  Pontus,  which  show 
on  the  obverse  the  bust  of  a  king  with  the  title  BA^IAEIl^ 
UOAEMflNO'Xy  on  the  reverse  the  bust  of  a  queen  with 
the  title  BA^IAU^H^  TPT^AINHS  ;  *  and  he  argued 
that  this  queen,  whose  bust  appears  on  Pontic  coins,  was 
the  Queen  Tryphaena  of  the  Ac^a. 

There  were  obvious  difficulties  in  the  identification.  The 
Tryphaena  of  the  coins  was  queen  of  the  independent 
kingdom  of  Pontus  ;  and  the  Tryphaena  of  the  romance 
was  apparently  a  Roman  subject,  resident  in  the  city  of 

*  Rhein.  Mus.,  1864,  p.  178  :  the  types  imply  that  the  Queen 
reigned  by  her  own  hereditary  right,  and  not  simply  as  Queen- 
Consort.  Lipsius,  p.  464,  speaks  of  Cilicia,  not  Pontus;  but 
Gutschmid  is  right,  and  the  coins  are  Pontic. 


XVI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.     383 

Antioch.  The  former  was  a  powerful  sovereign,  for  Polemon 
is  known  to  have  reigned  in  Pontus  until  A.D.  6'}^,  whereas 
the  latter  complains  of  her  friendlessness  and  helplessness. 
The  former  was  apparently  a  Greek  ;  the  latter  was  a  near 
relation  of  the  reigning  Emperor.  Polcmon's  wife  could 
not  on  any  reasonable  hypothesis  be  an  elderly  woman 
in  A.D.  50,  as  Tryphaena  in  the  tale  is  represented. 

Von  Gutschmid  advanced  an  hypothesis  to  get  rid  of 
some  of  these  difficulties,  and  to  establish  a  relationship 
between  the  Pontic  queen  and  the  Emperor  Claudius ;  and 
all  subsequent  scholars,  when  writing  on  the  Acta  of  Paul 
and  Thekla,  have  confined  themselves  to  reproducing  his 
hypothesis.*  We  shall  not  here  repeat  it,  as  subsequent 
investigations  have  completely  disproved  it.  Nor  shall  we 
recapitulate  the  gradual  progress  of  discovery,  in  which  the 
chief  parts  have  been  played  by  Von  Sallet,  Waddington, 
and  Mommsen  ;  though  it  would  be  a  matter  of  interest  to 
observe  how  evidence  slowly  accumulated,  and  one  fact 
after  another  was  gradually  established ;  and  it  would 
also  be  important  to  show  the  nature  of  the  evidence,  for  the 
facts  are  not  all  equally  firmly  established,  and  some  may 
yet  require  some  modification  from  further  discovery.  We 
may  accept  and  briefly  repeat  the  account  given  by 
Mommsent  of  this  queen,  as  being  in  all  essential  points 

•  Zahn,  in  Gotting.  Gelehrte  Anzeigen,  1877,  p.  1307,  argues  on 
the  supposition  that  it  has  been  demonstrated  as  certain. 

t  E;phemeris  Epigraphica,  i.,  pp.  270  ff. ;  ii.,  pp.  259  ff.  Lipsius 
refers,  p.  465«.,  to  the  Tryphaena  whom  Mommsen  describes,  as  a 
person  bearing-  the  same  name  as  the  Tryphaena  of  the  Acta  and 
of  Gutschmid.  He  did  not  discover  that  she  is  the  true  Pontic 
queen,  of  whom  Gutschmid  gave  such  a  boldly  hypothetical  history, 
in  which  the  only  true  points  were  her  name  and  her  identity  with  the 
queen  of  the  .4  c/a.  On  a  few  small  points  I  tacitly  differ  from  Mommsen. 


384        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

well  established  ;  and  we  may  do  so  with  more  confidence 
because  none  of  the  facts  on  which  his  account  is  founded 
are  derived  from  the  Christian  Acta,  nor  have  any  of  the 
successive  investigators  observed  that  the  facts  which  they 
have  discovered  bear  on  this  document. 

Queen  Tryphasna  belonged  to  a  family  which  played  an 
important  part  in  the  history  of  Asia  Minor  in  the  two 
centuries  immediately  before  and  after  Christ ;  and  it  will 
be  a  really  important  step  in  our  knowledge  of  the  diffusion 
of  Christianity  in  Asia  Minor,  if  we  succeed  in  establishing 
its  relations  with  this  dynasty.  Our  knowledge  of  the 
dynasty  rests  almost  wholly  on  the  evidence  of  inscriptions 
and  coins  ;  in  literature  there  occurs  hardly  any  reference 
to  it.  It  left  no  mark  on  the  history  of  the  world,  and  had 
no  place  in  the  memory  of  posterity.  It  is  in  the  last 
degree  improbable  that  any  person  so  late  as  A.D.  150 
remembered  the  existence  of  this  queen,*  or  that  a  tale 
in  which  she  was  a  prominent  character  first  received  literary 
form  so  late  as  the  latter  part  of  the  second  century.f  It  is  a 
striking  instance  of  the  historical  value  of  the  early  Christian 
documents,  that  the  only  deep  mark  this  dynasty  has  left 
on  literature  is  in  a  Christian  work  ;  and  I  hope  to  succeed 
in  showing  that  several  facts  with  regard  to  Tryphaena's 
fate,  which  are  stated  in  the  Acta  and  are  nowhere  else 
attested,  are  so  suitable  to  the  well-established  facts  of  her 
life,  that  they  deserve  to  be  accepted  as  historical. 

•  One  exception  probably  was  the  Sophist  of  Smyrna,  M.  Antonius 
Polemon,  whose  magnificent  progresses  in  almost  royal  state  between 
Laodiceia  (the  original  seat  of  the  family)  and  Smyrna  are  described 
in  very  interesting  terms  by  Philostratus.  He,  no  doubt,  thought  a 
good  deal  about  his  royal  relatives ;  and  it  is  possible  that  Tryphaena 
was  his  great-grandmother. 

t  Zahn,  I.e.,  has  put  this  point  well. 


XVI,    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.     385 

In  the  first  place,  we  must  observe  how  well  certain  traits 
in  the  Acta  agree  with  the  historical  position  of  this  dynasty. 
This  family  owed  its  importance  to  the  Imperial  policy  in 
Asia  Minor.  As  we  have  seen  (p.  34),  the  romanisation  of 
the  central  parts  of  Asia  Minor  was  in  progress  actively 
between  A.D.  30  and  70  ;  and  the  attention  of  the  Emperors 
was  closely  directed  on  it.  It  was  part  of  their  policy  to 
interpose  what  are  in  modern  slang  called  "  buffer-states  " 
between  the  Roman  boundaries  and  their  great  enemy  in 
the  East,  the  Parthians.  It  was  important  that  these 
States  should  be  governed  by  sovereigns  closely  united  by 
feeling,  interest,  and  family  ties  with  the  Empire.  The 
influence  exercised  by  this  lonely  widow  among  the  Roman 
officers,  the  deference  paid  her,  and  the  fear  of  the  Emperor's 
anger  if  anything  should  happen  to  her,  are  in  perfect 
agreement  with  the  historical  situation. 

In  the  second  place,  it  would  be  an  effective  argument  to 
show  how  the  difficulties  of  reconciling  the  Tryphaena  of 
the  Acta  with  the  historical  Tryphaena  have  disappeared 
one  by  one  in  the  gradual  progress  of  discovery  ;  but  it 
would  require  too  minute  discussion  of  the  facts.  One 
example,  however,  is  too  striking  to  be  omitted.  This 
Polemon,  who  appears  along  with  Tryphaena  on  Pontic 
coins,  was  a  mere  boy  in  the  year  37,  and  must  have  been 
a  comparatively  young  man  at  the  time  at  which  the  action 
of  the  Christian  tale  is  laid.  But  Tryphaena  in  the  tale  is 
an  elderly  woman.  How  could  so  young  a  king  have 
an  elderly  wife?  This  difficulty  was  cleared  away  by 
M.  Waddington's  observation  that  the  queen  on  the  coins 
is  a  mature  woman,  while  the  king  is  represented  as  a  mere 
boy ;  and  that  the  pair  are  not  wife  and  husband,  but 
mother  and  son, 

25 


386        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Queen  Tryphaena  was  daughter  of  Polemon,  King  of  part 
of  Lycaonia  and  Cilicia,  and  also  of  Pontus.  She  married 
Cotys,  King  of  Thrace,  and  became  the  mother  of  three 
kings,  Thracian,  Pontic,  and  Armenian.  She  was  in  her 
own  right  queen  of  Pontus,  but  only  queen -consort  in 
Thrace,  hence  her  name  does  not  appear  on  Thracian 
coins.  She  was  probably  about  forty-six  years  of  age  when 
her  son  Polemon  was  made  king  of  Pontus  in  A.D.  37  ;  * 
and  the  latter  was  then  perhaps  about  nineteen  years  old. 
In  A.D.  50  she  was  therefore  nearly  sixty.  This  suits  the 
Acta  perfectly. 

A  young  king  who  comes  of  age  after  his  mother  has 
exercised  for  some  years  the  sovereign  power  during  his 
minority,  does  not  always  find  it  easy  to  get  on  amicably 
with  her.  Tryphaena,  whose  mother  Pythodoris  had  reigned 
for  many  years  as  sole  sovereign  after  her  husband's 
death,  was  not  unlikely  to  be  rather  too  exacting  in  her 
demands  on  her  son's  obedience.  It  is  certain  that,  though 
we  hear  a  little  about  Polemon,  we  never  hear  in  history  of 
the  Pontic  queen.  It  therefore  appears  that  Tryphaena  did 
not  continue  to  exercise  in  Pontus  the  commanding  influence 
which  her  mother  had  possessed,  while  it  is  quite  natural 
that  she  may  have  desired  to  exert  a  similar  influence. 
The  queen  in  the  Acta  complains  of  her  friendlessness. 
There  is  then  every  probability  that  this  is  historically 
true ;  and  that  she  had  quarrelled  with  her  son,  who  found 
that  she  insisted  too  much  on  her  rights,  and  retired  to  a 
life  of  seclusion  on  her  own  private  estates  in  one  of  her 
father's  kingdoms. 

•  I  have  placed  in  an  excursus  a  brief  outline  of  Mommsen's  history 
of  the  family,  to  avoid  encumbering  the  text  with  facts  not  strictly 
belonging  to  my  subject,  yet  having  a  bearing  on  it. 


XVI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.     387 

Tryphasna  was  cousin,  once  removed,  of  the  Emperor 
Claudius,  her  mother  Pythodoris  being  his  full  cousin. 
The  relationship  was  through  the  Antonian  family,  for  the 
mothers  of  Pythodoris  and  of  Claudius  were  sisters,  both 
being  daughters  of  Marcus  Antonius  the  Triumvir,  and 
bearing  the  name  Antonia.  The  connection  with  the 
great  enemy  of  Augustus  was  no  great  advantage  to 
Tryphcena  in  her  earlier  years,  when  Augustus  and  Tiberius 
ruled  the  empire.  The  very  name  of  the  Triumvir  was 
long  proscribed  and  forbidden  to  be  mentioned  on  monu- 
ments or  uttered  by  loyal  citizens.*  Memory  of  Antonius 
was  indeed  permitted  at  least  as  early  as  A.D.  20,  possibly 
even  before  the  death  of  Augustus,;  but  still  he  was  not 
mentioned  by  Augustus  in  the  inomitneniufn  Ancyranum.^ 
It  was  not  till  the  accession  of  Caligula,  his  great-grandson, 
in  A.D.  2)7 i  that  it  became  a  really  great  advantage  to  belong 
to  the  Antonian  family,  whose  members  were  honoured 
and  promoted  by  the  young  Emperor,  His  successor, 
Claudius,  continued  the  same  policy ;  and  during  this  reign 
it  is  quite  in  accordance  with  the  scanty  evidence  that  the 
picture  given  in  the  Acta  should  be  strictly  true  :  the 
widowed  queen,  though  aged  and  living  in  retirement, 
retained  the  prestige  due  to  her  relationship  to  the  reigning 
Emperor,  to  her  former  power  as  a  reigning  queen,  and 
probably  also  to  her  personal  ability  and  energy.| 

•  See  Mommsen,  Res  Gest(S  D.  Aug.,  ed.  II.,  p.  i8o. 

t  Tacitus,  Annals,  iii.,  i8  ;  Mommsen,  /.  c,  p.  vi.  and  p.  i8i. 

\  Her  family  undoubtedly  showed  high  ability  both  before  and 
after  her  time.  Her  mother  was  certainly  a  remarkable  woman ; 
and  the  inscriptions  which  attest  Tryphaena's  relations  with  Cyzicos 
make  it  probable  that  she  had  something  of  her  mother's  character. 
The  respect  shown  to  her  at  Cyzicos  illustrates  the  dignity  ascribed  to 
her  in  the  Acta. 


388        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Further,  there  is  every  probability  that  within  a  few 
years  the  situation  changed.  In  54  A.D.  Claudius  died,  and 
Nero  succeeded  him  ;  and  the  new  Emperor  rather  made  a 
point  of  throwing  contempt  and  ridicule  on  his  predecessor. 
After  a  few  years  he  even  stripped  Polemon  of  his  kingdom 
of  Pontus,  leaving  him,  however,  a  principality  among  the 
mountain  districts  of  western  Cilicia.  The  picture  given  in 
the  Acta  of  Tryphasna's  situation,  while  true  to  the  time 
in  which  the  scene  is  laid,  ceased  to  be  so  after  a  very  few 
years  had  passed  ;  after  54  she  was  no  longer  a  relative  of 
the  Emperor,  and  in  all  probability  she  lost  much  of  her 
personal  influence  with  the  Roman  officials. 

It  is  not  possible  to  account  for  this  accuracy  in  details  * 
by  the  supposition  that  it  is  a  skilful  archaeological  forgery. 
Such  an  accurate  restoration  of  a  past  epoch  would  be 
utterly  different  in  type  from  other  ancient  forgeries,  and 
beyond  the  limits  of  ancient  thought  and  knowledge.  The 
tale  must  be  founded  on  fact,  and  committed  to  writing 
by  some  person  not  far  removed  from  the  events,  able  to 
compose  a  history,  or  at  least  a  poetical  idealisation  of 
history.  No  other  hypothesis  seems  consistent  with  the 
fidelity  to  a  transitory  and  soon-forgotten  epoch  of  history. 
We  must  hold  that  the  tale  is,  at  least  in  part,  historical, 
that  Thekla  was  a  real  person,  and  that  she  was  brought 
into  relations  with  the  greatest  figures  of  the  Galatic 
province  about  A.D.  50— viz.,  Paul,  Queen  Tryphasna,  and 
the  Roman  governor. 


•  Her  name   is   correctly  given.  As   a  Roman   lady,  she  was 

Antonia  Tryphasna,  but  as  a  queen  she  dropped  the  Antonia.     So 

M.  Antonius  Polemon,  as   her   son  was  certainly  called,   became 
King  Polemon. 


XVI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.     389 

Two  points  occur  to  the  critic  in  regard  to  which  the 
Tryphaena  of  the  Acta  differs  from  the  historical  Tryphaena. 

1.  In  the  Acta,  §  30,  the  Queen  says,  "  There  is  no  one  to 
aid  me,  neither  child,  for  my  child  has  died,*  nor  relative, 
for  I  am  a  widow."  The  real  queen  had  at  this  period 
three  sons  living  as  kings,  and  powerful  relatives.  But 
these  words  must  be  taken  as  the  exaggerated  expression 
of  grief  uttered  by  a  lonely  old  woman,  who  feels  that  her 
sons  have  not  remained  true  to  her,  and  are  as  good  as 
dead  to  her  ;  and  they  are,  if  pressed,  actually  inconsistent 
with  the  tale  itself,  for  in  §  36  she  is  said  to  be  the 
Emperor's  relative.  Moreover,  in  the  long  process  of 
alteration  through  which  the  work  has  passed,  a  little 
additional  colouring  was  liable  to  be  added  to  the  cry  of 
the  widow.  The  explanatory  phrases  read  like  literary 
additions.  The  original  words  then  were,  probably,  "  There 
is  no  one  to  help  me,  neither  child  nor  relative." 

2.  Tryphaena  in  the  legend  seems  to  reside  at  Antioch 
of  Pisidia.  The  family  to  which  she  belonged  is  not  known 
to  have  had  any  connection  with  Antioch  ;  and  we  have  seen 
that  the  natural  place  of  retirement  for  the  historical  Queen 
would  be  some  of  the  hereditary  possessions  of  her  family. 
We  could  understand  her  retiring  to  estates  beside  Laodiceia 
on  the  Lycus,  where  immense  property  was  owned  by 
M.  Antonius  Polemon  as  late  as  the  second  century,  or  to 
estates  near  Iconium  ;  but  that  she  should  be  residing  at 
Antioch  is  not  in  keeping  with  what  is  known  of  the 
family.  This  difficulty  will  disappear  in  the  course  of  the 
investigation  into  the  original  form  of  the  tale. 

•  The  Greek  also  permits  the  rendering,  "  for  my  children  have 
died." 


390        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

3.  Localities  of  the  Tale  of  Thekla. 

The  action  of  the  tale  was  originally  placed  at  Paul's 
first  visit  to  Iconium.  The  general  impression  is  that  he 
is  a  stranger  in  the  city,  and  yet  various  details  point 
to  a  later  visit.  This  contradiction  points  to  additions  or 
alterations  made  in  an  older  tale  through  misunderstanding. 
With  this  is  connected  the  doubt  whether  the  Antioch  of 
the  tale  is  the  Syrian  or  the  Pisidian.  If  the  scene  is  laid 
in  the  first  journey  the  Pisidian  Antioch  must  be  meant, 
and  indubitably  the  general  impression  is  to  that  effect. 
But,  if  the  scene  is  laid  in  any  other  journey,  the  Antioch 
of  §  I  must  be  the  Syrian  ;  and  the  other  references  are 
naturally  interpreted  accordingly.  The  doubt  was  felt  at  a 
very  early  time,  and  Basil  of  Seleuceia  says  that  the  Syrian 
Antioch  was  really  the  city  alluded  to,  though  Pisidian 
Antioch  claimed  to  be  the  scene  of  Thekla's  trial.  His 
opinion  was  evidently  founded  on  some  definite  argument ; 
and  this  argument  was  probably  as  follows.  We  have 
seen,  p.  31  ff.,  that  the  meeting  of  Paul  and  Onesiphorus 
was  originally  described  in  terms  true  to  the  road-system 
of  the  first  century,  but  unintelligible  afterwards,  and  that 
the  original  text  was  afterwards  changed  considerably. 
The  idea  taken  from  the  passage  in  later  time  was  that 
Onesiphorus  went  out  from  Iconium  along  the  road  to 
Lystra,  and  therefore  met  Paul  on  his  way  from  Lystra. 
This  implies  that  he  was  coming  from  the  Syrian  Antioch, 
and  therefore  that  the  journey  was  either  the  second  or 
third.  Basil  was  familiar  with  the  topography  of  a  country 
so  near  his  own  Isaurian  home,  and  naturally  argued  in 
this  way.  The  fact  that  Isauria  was  subject  to  the  See 
of  Antioch,  and    not,   like   Lycaonia,  to   Constantinople, 


XVI.    The  Acta  oj  Paul  and  Thekla.     391 

may   also   have   prejudiced  him  in  favour  of  the  Syrian 
Antioch. 

The  reference  to  Daphne,  and  the  title  Syriarch,  applied 
to  the  president  of  the  games  at  Antioch,  belong  to  a 
remodelling  of  the  tale,  executed  by  a  person  who  believed 
that  the  Syrian  city  was  meant. 

In  the  first  century  no  Roman  governor  resided  either 
at  Antioch  or  at  Iconium  ;  and,  if  a  governor  played  any 
part  in  the  action  at  either  city,  a  document  of  historical 
character  would  give,  either  expressly  *  or  incidentally, 
some  explanation  of  the  unusual  fact  that  he  was  present. 
The  course  of  the  tale  explains  why  a  governor  was  at 
Antioch  ;  but  there  is  nothing  to  show  why  he  should 
be  at  Iconium.  This  circumstance  alone  would  be  enough 
to  prove  that  the  trial  at  Iconium  before  the  governor  is 
quite  unhistorical ;  and  this  conclusion  is  confirmed  by 
numerous  details  in  the  scene. 

We  infer  from  these  facts  that  a  tale,  originally  belong- 
ing to  Paul's  first  journey,  and  occurring  in  Galatic 
Phrygia  (Iconium  and  Pisidian  Antioch),  was  afterwards 
remodelled  so  as  to  relate  to  the  second  or  third  journey, 
and  to  have  its  scene  in  part  at  Syrian  Antioch, 

4.  The  Trials  at  Iconium. 

The  double  trial  and  attempted  execution  of  Thekla 
before  two  Roman  governors  in  two  cities  stamp  the  tale 
as  unhistorical,  and  also  suggests  a  double  origin,  for  a 
single  inventor  would  be  content  with  one  governor 
and  one  trial.     Now  we  have  seen  that  the  governor  of 

•  So,  in  the  opening  of  Acta  Carpi,  the  proconsul's  presence  at 
Pergamos  is  noticed,  and  the  notice  is  an  explanation. 


392         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Iconium  must  be  unhistorical  ;  and,  when  we  eliminate 
him,  the  trial  and  punishment  there  must  also  disappear, 
for  only  a  Roman  governor  had  authority  to  pass  a  capital 
sentence  (p.  28 1«.).  Moreover,  the  salvation  of  Thckla 
is  not  rightly  worked  into  the  tale.  No  explanation  is 
given  as  to  what  happened  to  her  when  the  fire  was 
quenched  ;  and  in  the  following  paragraph  we  find  her 
walking  in  the  streets  of  Iconium,  just  as  if  she  were  an 
ordinary  inhabitant,  and  not  a  convicted  criminal  under 
sentence  of  death.  We  conclude,  then,  that  the  trial  at 
Antioch  and  the  trial  at  Iconium  spring  from  different 
origins,  and  that  the  latter  was  unskilfully  inserted  in 
a  tale  where  the  former  previously  had  a  place. 

We  now  turn  to  the  trial  and  punishment  of  Paul  in 
Iconium.  The  charges  against  him  are  double  and  self- 
contradictory.  First,  Demas  and  Hermogcnes  advise 
Thamyris  to  accuse  Paul  of  being  a  Christian,  as  this 
will  prove  fatal  to  him.  Such  a  detail  could  not  originate 
until  a  much  later  date  than  A.D.  50  ;  for  the  charge  was 
an  impossible  one  at  that  period.  The  other  charge — of 
being  a  magician  and  of  unlawfully  interfering  with  the 
conduct  and  feelings  of  women  and  the  established  habits 
of  society — is  characteristic  of  that  early  period  (pp.  236, 
282,  410),  and  points  to  an  origin  not  later  than  A.D.  80. 
The  implication  that  the  charge  of  magic,  §  15,  is  the 
same  as  that  of  interfering  with  the  feeling  and  action 
of  others,  §  16,  is  true  of  the  period  50-70  A.D. 

Expulsion  from  the  city  is  a  ridiculously  small  penalty 
for  a  provincial  governor  to  inflict,  if  he  considered  the 
charge  proved.  But  in  A.D.  50,  in  Iconium,  the  charge 
could  only  be  made  before  the  city  magistrates ;  and 
they  could  not  inflict  a  severer  penalty.     They  might  send 


XVI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.     393 

him  for  trial  by  the  governor,  or  they  might  expel  him 
from  the  city.  We  conclude,  then,  that  the  Roman 
governor  has  been  unskilfully  put  into  an  older  tale,  in 
which  the  judges  were  the  city  magistrates,*  and  which  was 
more  in  keeping  with  Acts  xiv.  3-5  (especially  as  given  in 
Codex  BezcB)  ;  also  that  the  accusation  suggested  by  Demas 
is  a  later  addition. 

The  trial  of  Thekla  in  Iconium  is  an  anachronism  from 
beginning  to  end.  The  punishment  pre-supposes  the 
presence  of  a  Roman  governor  ;  and  there  was  no  governor 
in  Iconium.  The  bitter  spirit  of  the  mother,  who  urges 
the  governor  to  burn  her  daughter  as  an  example  to  other 
women  in  future,  is  quite  unnatural.  The  natural  course 
of  events  is  that  Thekla  should  be  dealt  with  in  private 
by  her  own  family  (p.  348«.).  There  was  really  no  charge 
against  her  to  come  before  a  court,  much  less  before  a 
Roman  governor.  Now,  when  we  turn  to  one  of  the 
earliest  independent  accounts  of  the  legend  of  Thekla, 
contained  in  a  Homily  attributed  to  Chrysostom,t  we  find 
that  the  account  there  given  is  very  different  from  that 
contained  in  the  Acta,  and  agrees  perfectly  with  what  we 
must  consider  the  natural  course  in  the  time  of  Claudius. 
Far  more  stress  is  in  the  Homily  laid  on  private  action  in 
the  family.  Her  parents,  her  lover,  her  relatives,  and  her 
domestics,  all  urged  and  entreated  her.  Finally,  she  was 
taken  before  the  dikastai*  who  attempted    to  terrify  her 

•  Basil  uses  sometimes  the  term  dikastes,  sometimes  proconsul. 
In  Acta  Pionii,  dikastai  tried  the  case  at  Smyrna,  and  sent  it  for 
trial  before  the  proconsul. 

t  Opera,  Montfaucon,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  896-9,  ed.  II.,  pp.  749-51,  ed.  I. 
Opinion  seems  universal  that  the  Homily  is  not  in  his  style  ;  and  we 
are  thus  deprived  of  a  date,  which  would  have  been  welcome.  It  is 
quite  probable  that  the  Homily  may  be  as  old  as  A.D.  300. 


394        "^^^  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

with  threats  of  punishment,  and  then  dismissed  her.  She 
then  wandered  away,  trying  to  find  Paul,  and  guiding 
herself  by  rumours  as  to  his  probable  destination.  Her 
lover  pursued  her,  and  overtook  her.  When  she  was  on 
the  point  of  becoming  a  victim  to  his  violence  she  prayed 
to  Heaven ;  and  here,  unfortunately,  the  fragment  ends.  We 
cannot  hesitate  to  accept  this  as  the  original  tale.  The 
author  must  have  had  access  to  an  older  form  of  the  tale 
of  Thekla  in  which  there  was  no  Roman  governor,  no 
condemnation  and  punishment,  and  no  miraculous  rescue 
from  the  flames.  Apparently  the  family  tried  all  means 
of  persuasion  and  home  influence,  and  even  the  terror  of 
a  law  court  At  this  trial  it  would  be  natural  that  the 
mother,  provoked  by  Thekla's  long-continued  obstinacy, 
should  be  desirous  that  such  punishment  as  was  in  the 
power  of  the  dikastai  should  be  inflicted  on  her  ;  but 
this  trait,  retained  in  the  extant  Acta,  becomes  unnatural 
when  the  punishment  is  death  by  fire.  Finally,  it  is 
probable  that  her  wandering  forth  was  permitted  in  pur- 
suance of  a  plan  of  cure,  which  was  founded  on  the  belief 
that,  if  Thamyris  once  succeeded,  even  by  violence,  in 
forcing  her  to  submit  to  his  embraces,  the  influence  gained 
over  her  by  the  enchanter  and  magician  Paul  would  be 
destroyed. 

In  this  version  all  is  natural,  simple,  and  suitable  to  the 
time  and  place.  We  accept  the  visit  to  Paul  by  night,  and 
the  bribing  of  the  porter  and  gaoler  ;  and  we  observe  that 
the  bracelets  and  the  silver  mirror  are  objects  that  would 
be  ready  at  hand  to  a  maiden  of  rich  family.  We  also 
notice  the  characteristic  trait  that  the  domestics  entreat 
her  with  tears.  The  inscriptions  of  the  country,  with  their 
common    reservation  of  a  place  in    the  family  tomb   for 


XVI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.     395 

domestic  slaves,  prove  that  close  and  intimate  ties  con- 
nected the  household  slaves  with  the  master's  family.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  details  of  the  attempt  to  burn  Thekla 
are  poor,  and  either  unnatural  or  borrowed.*  The  vision 
is  a  stock  incident,  not  very  successfully  introduced,  and 
rather  like  an  invention  of  the  second  century  (founded  on 
the  Acta  of  Carpos  and  Agathonike). 

The  meeting  of  Paul  with  Thekla  in  the  grave  at 
Iconium  disappears,  when  the  old  form  of  the  tale  is  re- 
stored ;  and,  with  the  meeting,  their  journey  to  Antioch 
in  company  is  eliminated,  as  well  as  the  detestable  incident 
of  Paul's  denial  and  desertion  of  Thekla,  when  she  was 
exposed  to  the  insults  of  Alexander.  These  last  details 
have  perhaps  arisen  from  a  misunderstanding.  Thekla, 
when  seized  by  Alexander's  attendants,  called  in  her 
distress  on  Paul ;  and  the  dull  wit  of  a  later  time  thought 
that  this  implied  his  bodily  presence. 

5.  The  Trial  of  Thekla  at  Antioch. 

In  the  Antiochian  part  of  the  tale  we  are  struck  at  once 
with  the  fact  that  Thekla  does  not  suffer  for  any  act  of  a 
religious  character,  and  throughout  the  scene  of  the  trial 
no  reference  is  made  to  her  religion  (except  in  some  later 
points  :  Gwynn,  p.  889).  An  inventor  of  a  legend  about 
a  Christian  heroine  would  never  have  imagined  a  scene  in 
which  religion  played  no  part.  We  feel  here  at  once  the 
touch  of  reality  and  life.  The  trial  at  Antioch  is  on  a  very 
different  plane  of  thought  and  feeling  from  that  at  Iconium. 

•  One  detail  seems  borrowed  from  the  case  of  Polycarp.  See 
Lightfoot,  i.,  p.  623«. 


396        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

The  central  difficulty  is  the  presence  of  a  Roman  governor. 
We  cannot  get  rid  of  him  as  we  did  of  the  Iconian 
governor  ;  for  the  crime — which  was  sacrilege — and  the 
sentence  alike  imperatively  demand  his  presence.  But  the 
action  fully  explains  why  he  was  in  Antioch.  The  occasion 
was  a  great  festival  containing  an  exhibition  of  wild  beasts 
iyenatid),  which,  in  a  provincial  city  not  the  capital  of 
the  province,  was  a  remarkable  event.  The  festival,  with 
its  Roman  venatio,  had  evidently  a  political  character,  being 
part  of  the  government  scheme  for  the  romanisation  of 
Southern  Galatia.  The  governor  had  visited  Antioch  to 
make  the  event  more  imposing ;  and  all  the  chief  persons 
in  Galatic  Phrygia  had  come  to  pay  their  respects  to 
him  and  to  the  Imperial  authority  which  he  represented. 
Among  the  rest,  Queen  Tryphana  had  come  from  her 
estates  near  Iconium  for  this  great  occasion.  Thus  the 
solution  of  one  difficulty  solves  another  (p.  389). 

Alexander,  the  agonothetes  or  president  at  this  festival, 
must  have  been  a  person  of  great  importance,  and  a  lead- 
ing figure  in  the  State  religion,  which  was  the  bond  of 
loyalty  and  union  in  the  Empire.  In  the  Greek  MSS.  he 
is  styled  Syriarch,  which  belongs  to  the  later  modification. 
It  is  quite  possible  that,  in  the  original  text,  he  was  the 
Galatarch,  or  high-priest  of  the  Galatic  province.  Two 
of  the  Latin  MSS.  mention  that  he  was  the  giver  of  the 
venatio  ;  *  and  this  detail  is  true  to  common  practice.  The 
president  frequently  added  at  his  own  expense  to  the 
magnificence  of  the  festival  at  which  he  presided. 

Alexander,  accompanied  of  course  by  a  great  train  of 

*  Probably  the  text  of  D.  also  did  so  ;  but  it  has  been  corrupted. 
Alexandra  ^rcesens  sedente  should  be  corrected  to  Alexandra 
■prasens  {munu)s  edente. 


XVI.    T/te  Acta  of  Paul  ana  Thekla.     ^97 

attendants,  saw  Thekla  entering  Iconium,  and  was  struck 
with  her  beauty.  A  young  woman  alone  in  the  street  of 
an  eastern  town  was  obviously  a  dancing-girl  of  no  respect- 
able character  ;  and  as  such  Alexander  accosted  her  and 
kissed  her.  The  act  was  originally  a  piece  of  gallantry,  a  ■ 
kindness  and  an  honour  to  a  person  of  her  class  ;  and  we 
notice  that  the  accounts  given  of  it  make  it  more  heinous 
and  offensive  in  the  later  texts  than  in  the  earlier.  Con- 
sidering the  person  and  the  occasion,  we  must  not  attribute 
any  ugly  character  to  it ;  for  Alexander  was  apparently 
on  his  way  to  the  festival.  Thekla  loudly  invoked  the 
right  of  a  stranger  and  guest — a  touch  true  to  ancient 
feeling.  She  explained  her  position,  as  belonging  to  a 
noble  Iconian  family,  and  engaged  in  the  service  of  "  the 
God."  Finally,  when  Alexander  persisted  in  his  attentions, 
she  tore  his  dress,  and  pulled  off  the  crown  which  marked 
his  sacred  office.* 

The  reason  given  by  Thekla  was  the  only  one  that 
could,  in  this  Oriental  land,  explain  the  appearance 
unattended  in  the  streets  of  a  lady  of  good  character  and 
birth.  She  was  one  of  the  inspired  servants  {deocpoprjToc), 
who  were  a  recognised  and  wide-spread  accompaniment 
of  the  Asian  religion.  In  accordance  with  the  service 
imposed  on  her  by  "  the  God,"  she  was  observing  a  rule 
of  chastity.  In  this  religion  the  observance  of  absolute 
and  perfect  purity  was  a  recognised  rite,  though,  as  a 
rule,  such  inspired  female  servants  of  the  God  were  bound 
to  precisely  the  opposite  way  of  life  during  their  period 

•  M.  Le  Blant  wrongly  considers  him  d,ste;phanephoros  {Actes  des 
Martyrs,  p.  320).  That  official  was  a  municipal  magistrate,  whereas 
the  president  of  such  a  festival  belonged  to  the  provincial  organisa- 
tion of  the  Imperial  religion. 


398       The   Church  in  the  Roman  Empire, 

of  service,  and  were  not  considered  dishonoured  thereby* 
This  trait  takes  us  into  the  midst  of  popular  life,  and 
makes  the  original  part  of  the  Acta  a  unique  document 
for  illustrating  the  spirit  prevalent  in  Galatic  Phrygia  in 
A.D.  50.  If  one  compares  it  with  the  tale  of  the  sacrifice 
at  Lystra  and  the  legend  of  Baucis  and  Philemon,  and 
then  reads  the  Attis  of  Catullus,  one  appreciates  better 
the  character  of  Phrygian  thought,  its  difference  from 
Greek,  and  the  fascination  which  it  possesses. 

Alexander's  attendants  arrested  Thekla,  and  carried  her 
before  the  governor.  The  case  was  susceptible  of  a  serious 
interpretation.  She  had  assaulted  a  representative  of  the 
Imperial  authority,  wearing  his  official  priestly  dress,  on 
the  morning  of  a  great  ceremony  at  which  he  was  about 
to  preside.  The  offence  was  sacrilege,  and,  as  such,  was 
in  the  category  of  dangerous  crimes  commended  to  the 
special  care  of  all  governors  (p.  208).  The  governor  was 
satisfied  as  to  the  facts  by  the  confession  of  the  accused 
(pp.  214,  238)  ;  a  severe  example  would  bring  home  to 
all  minds  the  terror  of  Roman  authority  ;  and  the  penalty 
of  exposing  Thekla  at  the  venatio  given  by  Alexander 
seemed  peculiarly  appropriate  to  the  offence.  Such 
a  sentence  was  probably  new  to  the  country,  where  Roman 
customs  were  only  coming  into  use ;  and  it  is  interesting 
to  observe  the  effect  produced.  The  whole  city  was 
astonished ;  and  the  women  were  specially  active  in 
protesting    against    the    sentence    as    iniquitous,  f      The 

*  An  inscription  of  Tralles  shows  the  general  type.  A  woman 
of  good  birth  (proved  by  her  Latin  name)  erects  a  dedicatory 
offering  to  Zeus,  as  having,  like  her  ancestors,  ■natCkaKevvacra  /cat  Kara 
Xprja-fjLov.     See  Bull,  de  Corres^.  Hellenique,  1882,  p.  276. 

fXhe  Syriac  and  Latin  versions  keep  this  detail;  the  Greek  has 


XVI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.     399 

question  suggests  itself,  how  the  women  could  be  present 
at  the  trial.  The  trial  was  evidently  held  in  public  at 
the  actual  festival  before  the  whole  assembled  multitude  ; 
the  case  had  been  carried  straight  before  the  governor,  and 
decided  by  him  sitting  in  his  official  place  at  the  festival,* 
being  one  of  an  administrative,  and  not  of  a  strictly  judicial, 
character  (p.  207). 

The  general  sympathy  had  some  effect.  The  governor 
granted  Thekla  the  privilege,  ordinarily  reserved  for 
criminals  of  higher  rank,  of  being  confined  in  a  private 
house  instead  of  a  prison.  It  was  only  too  evident  what 
reason  a  condemned  female  prisoner  had  to  dread  the 
gaoler's  brutality  ;  t  and,  to  enable  her  to  fulfil  her  service 
of    purity,    the    noblest    lady    in    the    assembly,    Queen 

lost  it.  From  the  recurrence  of  their  protest  in  §§  28,  32,  we  gather 
their  view,  that  Thekla  represented  them,  what  she  had  done  they 
might  be  ordered  by  "  the  God"  to  do,  and  her  action  was  covered 
by  the  Divine  command  which  all  who  received  it  must  obey  (see 
p.  403).  Harnack  has  seen  the  analogy  between  the  sympathy  of 
the  women  here,  and  the  sympathy  of  the  crowd  for  Agathonike 
in  Acta  Carpi,  and  rightly  inclines  to  think  the  latter  an.  imitation. 
He  remarks  on  the  motivelessness  of  the  pity  for  Agathonike,  who 
was  voluntarily  rushing  on  death. 

*  Similarly  Polycarp  was  heard  and  condemned  in  the  Stadium 
at  Smyrna.     M.  Le  Blant  quotes  many  examples,  I.e.  p.  116. 

t  Moreover,  the  ingenuity  of  Roman  practice  had  in  A.D.  31 
perverted  a  humane  scruple  {triumvirali  supplicio  adfici  virginem 
inauditum  habebatur)  into  a  reason  for  detestable  brutality  to  the 
young  daughter  of  Sejanus  (Tacitus,  Ann.,  v.,  9) ;  and  this  act 
constituted  a  precedent,  which  might  defend  numerous  cases  of 
similar  brutality  to  Christian  virgins  in  later  time.  There  is  no 
reason  to  disbelieve  these  cases,  as  Neumann  does,  p.  \\27i.  They 
are  attested  by  too  weighty  evidence,  though  of  course  the  fantastic 
developments  given  to  them  in  later  hagiography  are  inane.  If 
such  things  were  done  to  the  innocent  daughter  of  a  Roman  noble, 
why  not  to  a  Christian  criminal  ? 


400        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Tryphaena,  offered  to  be  security  for  her  appearance  at 
the  proper  moment.  This  kind  of  confinement  {custodia 
libera^  privatd)  was  common.  A  guarantee  {Jide-jussor)  was 
required  ;  and  ordinarily  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  one 
in  the  case  of  a  person  condemned  to  death.*  Only 
exceptional  circumstances  could  have  saved  Thekla  from 
the  public  prison ;  but  the  details  here,  though  unusual,  bear 
the  stamp  of  reality  and  truth. 

The  opening  ceremony  of  the  games  in  the  Stadium  f 
consisted  in  a  procession,  in  which  were  displayed  the 
ornaments  of  the  show  and  the  officials  who  directed  it. 
This  is  true  to  Roman  custom.  Tertullian  speaks  of  "  the 
ostentatious  preliminary  display  of  the  games  to  which  the 
name  procession  specially  belongs,"  Sped,  y  ;  and  Juvenal 
describes  it  x.  35.  In  one  point  the  Acta  goes  beyond  our 
other  authorities.  These  do  not  mention  that  the  animals 
were  ever  shown  in  the  procession,  and  it  is  unnatural  that 
wild  beasts  should  be  taken  through  the  streets,  whether 
in  cages  or  otherwise.  Here,  as  in  many  other  details,  the 
Latin  version  retains  a  far  more  accurate  account  than  the 
Greek.  The  latter  represents  Thekla  as  forming  part  of 
the  procession,  bound  to  a  lioness ;  whereas  the  Latin  says 

*  Roman  law  was  very  severe  in  the  case  of  a  prisoner's  escape, 
and  the  guard  in  charge  was,  strictly,  liable  to  the  fate  of  the  escaped 
prisoner.  Hadrian  distinguished  (expressly  in  the  case  of  military 
guards,  and  by  implication  in  the  case  of  others)  between  fault, 
carelessness,  and  accident,  on  the  part  of  the  guards,  and  dis- 
criminated penalties  accordingly  {Digest.,  48,  3,  12). 

t  Stadium  in  the  Greek,  amphitheatre  in  the  Latin.  No  remains 
of  either  were  seen  by  Hamilton  or  by  Laborde  ;  nor  did  I,  in  a  very 
short  visit,  see  any.  But  such  a  city  must  have  had  some  place 
for  public  exhibitions.  Probably  it  was  a  oraSioi/  dfi(f>idfaTpov,  a 
species  of  building,  about  which  I  hope  in  1893  to  write  in  Bulletin 
de  Corresp.  HelUnique. 


XVI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.     401 

that  Thekla  was  placed  on  the  top  of  the  cage  where  the 
lioness  was  confined  in  the  amphitheatre,  and  that,  when 
she  was  in  that  position,  the  procession  entered  the  arena. 
The  lioness  protruded  its  tongue  between  the  bars  of  the 
cage,  and  licked  Thekla's  feet.  The  extent  to  which 
the  ignorant  creative  fancy  of  later  hagiography  has 
distorted  the  original  document  into  unnatural  form  is 
well  exemplified  in  this  case.  Lipsius  docs  not  quote  the 
complete  Syriac  version  ;  but  we  cannot  doubt  that  the 
Latin  approximates  far  more  closely  than  the  Greek  to 
the  original  text.  I  see  no  reason  to  treat  the  incident 
as  one  that  may  not  have  actually  occurred.  The  lioness 
had  been  brought  from  a  distance,  and  it  must  have  been 
kept  in  a  portable  cage  during  the  journey.  This  cage 
was  put  in  the  arena  during  the  procession. 

When  Thekla  was  thus  exhibited  in  the  arena,  a  tablet 
was  placed  beside  her  with  the  inscription  "SACRILEGA." 
Similarly  at  Lugdunum  in  177,  it  is  mentioned  that  in 
front  of  Attalus  was  placed  the  inscription  "  CHRISTIANUS."* 
The  Greek  rendering  lepoavXo^}  recalls  the  language  of 
Acts  xix.  37  (see  p.  26on.). 

6.  Punishment  and  Escape  of  Thekla. 

On  the  day  of  the  procession  Tryphaena  produced 
Thekla  to  take  part  in  it,  and  received  her  back  to  her 
house  to  spend  the  final  night.  We  cannot  accept  as 
original    the  statement  that  Tryphaena  accompanied  her 

•  Cp.  also  Mark  xv.  26.  M.  Le  Blant  quotes  the  gloss:  elogium, 
titulus  cujuslibet  ret  {Actes,  p.  172:  the -word  elogium,  eulogium, 
is  used  in  D).  He  also  compares  the  Greek  text  with  Matt,  xxvii. 
37,  forgetting,  however,  that  he  is  quoting  the  valueless  words  of  the 
Metaphrast. 

26 


402        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

during  the  procession.  This  is  the  exaggeration  of  a  later 
enlarger,  who  did  not  comprehend  the  situation  ;  it  is  an 
improbabiUty  of  the  most  glaring  kind  that  this  noble  lady- 
should  go  into  the  arena.  Moreover,  it  is  inconsistent 
with  the  tale,  for  Tryphaena's  great  affection  began  during 
the  next  night,*  when  her  lost  daughter  appeared  and  bade 
her  take  Thekla  as  a  new-found  daughter. 

At  dawn  of  the  following  day  Alexander  appeared  to 
require  Thekla's  presence  in  the  arena.  The  fact  that  so 
high  an  official  came  in  person  can  be  explained  only  as  a 
special  mark  of  respect  to  the  queen  ;  it  was  not  thought 
courteous  to  send  the  officers  of  the  law.  But  Tryphaena 
now  refused  to  give  up  her  prisoner,  and  did  not  yield  until 
the  governor  sent  soldiers,  f  Tryphaena  then  led  her  by  the 
hand  to  the  stadium.  She,  of  course,  was  accompanied  by 
a  numerous  retinue  of  her  attendants,  who  are  alluded  to  at 
a  later  stage. 

When  Thekla  was  exposed  in  the  arena  she  was  stripped, 
and  a  cincture  was  given  her.  When  she  was  released  her 
clothes  were  given  back  to  her.  This  account,  as  M.  Le 
Blant  remarks,  is  true  to  Roman  custom  ;  and  he  quotes 


*  The  Latin  version  D  is  very  much  superior  to  the  Greek  text. 
This  could  not  be  gathered  from  Lipsius'  notes.  I  regret  that  I  am 
obliged  to  write  without  having  any  of  the  Latin  texts  except  D 
before  me. 

t  The  Latin  versions  have  stratorem  (two  corruptly).  I  believe 
that  this  is  due  to  the  influence  of  such  a  document  as  Acta  Procos. 
Cypriani,  and  marks  these  versions  as  being  later  than  the  middle 
of  the  third  century.  A  strator  would  be  an  anachronism  in  the  first 
century.  Ulpian  says  that  no  proconsul  is  allowed  to  have  stratores, 
but  soldiers  must  perform  their  duties  in  the  provinces  {Digest,  i., 
i6,  4,  i) ;  and  probably  this  rule  applied  also  to  Imperial  provinces 
like  Galatia.  The  prohibition  seems  to  have  been  relaxed  between 
228  and  258  A.O. 


XVI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Tkekla.     403 

the  case  of  an  executioner  who  was  burned  to  death,  because 
he  had  not  given  a  cincture  to  a  noble  Roman  woman 
when  she  was  led  to  execution,  but  had  compelled  her  to 
go  absolutely  nude.*  The  simple  and  pathetic  prayer 
of  Thekla,  standing  exposed  in  the  arena  (it  is  given  in 
the  Syriac  version  alone;  see  p.  413)  is  not  in  the  later 
hagiographical  style,  and  is  probably  genuine,  in  whole  or 
in  great  part.  Thekla  in  it  speaks  unconsciously  as  repre- 
senting her  whole  sex  ;  in  her  exposure  the  nature  and 
rights  of  womanhood  are  outraged.  A  similar  view  is 
taken  by  the  women  who  defended  her  cause ;  and  this 
ethical  idea,  of  a  non-religious  type,  which  runs  through 
the  action,  is  one  of  the  strongest  proofs  that  the  tale  is  no 
artificial  creation  of  unhistorical  hagiography.  It  is  the 
only  existing  document  that  gives  us  any  insight  into 
popular  feeling  in  central  Asia  Minor  during  this  century  ; 
and  it  is  also  the  only  evidence  we  possess  of  the  ideas  and 
action  of  women  at  this  period  in  the  country  where  their 
position  was  so  high  and  their  influence  so  great. 

The  scene  in  the  arena  gives  excellent  opening  to  later 
additions.  Marvels  of  the  common  type  are  related  of  the 
strange  escape  of  Thekla  from  death  ;  and  the  incident  of 
the  seals  slain  by  lightning  is  extremely  grotesque  and 
puerile.  It  is  doubtful  whether  any  details  can  be  assigned 
to  the  original  composition,  except  that  the  lioness  spared 
her,  and  that  in  her  subsequent  danger  Queen  Tryphasna 
fainted.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  was  the  cause  of 
Thekla's  rescue  from  the  first,  as  it  still  is  in  the  most 
corrupt  form  of  the  tale.  It  is  improbable  that  the  lioness 
was   baptized  by  Thekla,    according  to   the  statement  of 

•  Le  Blant,  Actes,  p.  247;  Ammianus,  28,  i,  28:  to  refuse  the 
cincture  {subligaculum)  was  nefas  admisisse. 


404        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Jerome.*  This  grotesque  detail  is  quite  incongruous  with 
later  views  ;  and  is  also  quite  as  far  removed  from  primi- 
tive simplicity  as  it  is  from  later  hagiographical  inanity. 
It  can  only  be  treated  as  a  fault  of  memoiy  on  Jerome's 
part,  who  remembered  that  Tertullian  referred  to  it  in  his 
treatise  on  baptism,  and  mixed  up  the  baptizing  with  the  lion. 
The  precise  form  in  which  the  incident  was  originally 
related  cannot  be  discovered  ;  but  the  following  considera- 
tions suggest  themselves : — 

1.  Zahn  is  orobably  right  in  suspecting  that  Ignatius  refers 
to  this  incident  when  he  speaks  of  beasts,  "  as  they  have 
done  to  some,  refusing  to  touch  them  through  fear."  f 
Such  an  occurrence  may  be  accepted  as  quite  possible. 
The  capricious  conduct  of  beasts  suddenly  released  from 
confinement  and  darkness,  and  brought  into  the  glare  of 
the  arena  amid  the  shouts  of  the  spectators  is  natural  ; 
and  is  vouched  for  by  narratives  of  perfect  credibility.^ 
We  believe,  that  this  incident  was  embodied  in  a  literary 
form  early  enough  to  be  known  to  Ignatius. 

2.  A  remarkable  analogy  to  the  case  of  Thekla  occurs 
in  that  of  an  African  martyr,  Marciana.  A  lion  was  sent 
against  her  in  the  arena.  It  sprang  on  her  and  placed  its 
paws  on  her  breast,  and  then,  after  smelling  her,§  let  her 

*  Lipsius  accepts  the  statement.     Jerome,  de  vir.  zllusir.,  c.  7. 

t  Zahn  in  Gotting.  Gelehrte  Anzeigen,  1877,  p.  1308  ;  Ignatius, 
Rom.,  5. 

X  See  p.  312.  The  narrative  of  Tacitus,  Hist.,  ii.,  6r,  is  specially 
appropriate.  Mariccus  was  spared  by  the  beasts  to  whom  he  was 
exposed,  and  the  crowd  believed  that  this  was  the  effect  of  his  divine 
power.     Cp.  Le  Blant,  Actes,  pp.  86  and  95. 

§  Acta  Sanctorum,  9  Jan.,  p.  569.  M.  le  Blant's  reference, 
.^4c/^i-,  p.  86,  directed  me  to  this  document.  His  view  with  regard 
to  the  scene  differs  from  mine.  The  lion,  having  licked  Thekla's 
feet,  might  recognise  her  in  the  arena  by  smell. 


X  VI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.     405 


alone.  Immediately  afterwards  a  bull  wounded  her,  and 
then  a  leopard  killed  her.  This  action  of  the  lion  was 
interpreted  afterwards  in  a  more  miraculous  sense  :  an  old 
Spanish  hymn  speaks  of  the  lion  "  coming  to  worship,  not 
to  devour  the  Virgin."  * 

The  tale  of  Marciana  is  unhistorical.f  It  contains  various 
miracles  of  a  rather  absurd  type.  Possibly  her  fate  in  the 
arena  was  modelled  on  that  of  Thekla  ;  and  perhaps  the 
incident  of  the  lion  was  told  in  Acta  TJieklcB  originally  in 
this  simple  and  natural  form,  which  afterwards  was  replaced 
by  other  details  of  a  more  marvellous  kind,  suited  to  the 
taste  of  later  centuries.  In  this  small  city  of  an  eastern 
province  it  is  not  probable  that  the  ve^iatio  would  be  on 
a  large  scale ;  probably  it  was  given  at  the  expense  of 
the  president,  as  was  commonly  the  case,  and  as  is  here 
stated  in  the  Latin  version.  There  was  therefore  probably 
only  one  lion ;  and  this  single  lion  was  esteemed  a  great 
rarity  and  a  proof  of  unusual  magnificence.  The  Syriac 
version  speaks  only  of  one  lion.  Bears  were  found  in  the 
mountains  not  far  from  Antioch,t  and  it  is  quite  probable 

•  Adoraturus,  non  co?nesiurus,  Virginem,  where,  as  M.  le  Blant 
observes,  the  old  odoratus  has  undergone  only  a  slight  change. 
The  hymn  is  quoted  in  Acta  Sanctorum,  I.e. 

t  In  such  a  case  one  need  not  conclude  that  the  person  is  a  m)rth, 
but  that  details  had  perished,  and  were  in  demand,  and  were 
supplied  from  the  analogy  of  other  documents  and  general  proba- 
bility. M.  le  Blant  has  shown  that  details,  historical  in  one  tale, 
were  adopted  unhistorically  in  others,  Actes,  p.  88,  etc. 

X  I  have  actually  seen  a  bear  further  east  in  a  solitary  glen  of 
the  Anti-taurus  ;  and  in  one  case  among  the  Phrygian  mountains  a 
Turk  professed  to  point  out  traces  of  a  bear  in  a  cave,  and  assarted 
that  bears  were  occasionally  found.  I  felt  far  from  certain  that  he 
was  not  speaking  from  a  wish  to  please  me,  mistaking,  as  these 
people  often  do,  curiosity  about  a  point  for  a  desire  that  the  point 
should  be  of  some  suggested  character. 


4o6         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

that  there  was  a  bear  in  the  venatio,  and  that  the  original 
intention,  before  a  criminal  turned  up  in  the  person  of 
Thekla,  was  to  exhibit  a  fight  between  the  two.*  All 
versions  of  the  tale  mention  the  bear  and  its  fight  with 
the  lioness.  The  Syriac  version  alone  mentions  a  leopard. 
This  is  probably  an  addition  ;  and  we  remember  that  the 
Syrian  Ignatius  makes  the  earliest  known  reference  to 
leopardsjt  which  therefore  must  have  been  well  known  in 
Syria.  Panthers  were  frequently  found  in  Taurus  at  that 
time  ;  %  and  I  have  heard  men  assert  that  they  are  still 
found  in  the  country,  but  have  never  known  any  person 
who  had  actually  seen  a  panther  there.  As  no  reference 
occurs  to  the  panther,  we  may  set  down  the  leopard  as  an 
addition  made  by  the  Syrian  translator.  The  numerous 
other  animals  are  likewise  due  to  later  exaggeration.  The 
bulls  alone,  which  were  introduced  as  an  afterthought  on 
the  part  of  Alexander,  in  order  to  tear  the  criminal  asunder, 
perhaps  belong  to  the  original  tale.  Some  specially  shock- 
ing detail  is  needed  as  a  cause  for  Tryphaena's  fainting ; 
and  this  seems  a  device  which  might  be  easily  suggested 
and  acted  on  in  real  life.  The  preparation  of  this  mode  of 
execution  so  affected  the  Queen  that  she  fainted.  Alexander 
was  terrified  lest  he  should  be  considered  by  the  Emperor, 
her  relative,  as  guilty,  if  Tryphaena  suffered  seriously.  He 
hastened  to  release  Thekla.  The  governor,  who  is  repre- 
sented as  having  consented  rather  reluctantly  to  the  last 


•  Camel  fights  are  now  a  recognised  sport  at  festivals.  A  lion- 
and-bear  fight  is  reported  in  Scotsman,  about  January  2nd,  1893. 

t  Lightfoot,  Ignat,  i.,  p.  412;  ii.,  p.  212.  Syrian  and  African 
leopards  were  the  two  species  used  in  venationes  by  Probus,  Scr. 
Hist.  Aug.,  xxviii.,  19. 

X  They  are  often  mentioned  in  Cicero's  letters  from  Asia  Minor. 


XVI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.     407 

act  of  barbarity,  at  once  pardoned  her,  and  she  returned 
home  with  Tryphaena. 

In  the  scene  at  Antioch  few  traces  are  found  which 
imply  that  Thekla  was  known  to  be  a  Christian.  The 
women  sympathise  with  her  in  a  most  thorough  and 
enthusiastic  way.  Her  cause  was  theirs :  what  she  is  con- 
demned to  suffer  they  may  in  ordinary  course  deserve. 
This  is  most  strongly  expressed  in  the  Latin  version, 
§  32,  but  the  Greek  also  has  it  less  plainly.  Such  a  view 
was  impossible  if  they  thought  her  a  Christian  ;  they 
believed  her  to  be  a  devotee,  bound  by  some  unusual 
conditions.*  Only  in  the  passage  referring  to  Falconilla 
is  Thekla's  religion  known  to  other  persons.  But  the 
name  Falconillaf  shows  that  the  passage  is  not  original  ; 
and  its  inconsistency  with  its  surroundings  in  this  feature 
confirms  the  inference.  Moreover,  the  prayers  for  the 
soul  of  the  deceased  Falconilla  have  a  formal  and  de- 
veloped tone,  which  suits  the  second  century  better  than 
A.D.  50. 

The  words  of  the  governor's  actX  setting  Thekla  free, 
have  not  been  left  uninterpolated  by  later  taste  ;  at  least, 
the  epithet  God-fearing  (^eocre/Sr),  metitentem  dominuni)  is 
due  to  a  later  age,  and  to  the  desire  to  use  this  oppor- 
tunity of  making  the  governor  bear  witness  to  the  truth. 
The   phrase   "the  servant  of  God,"   however,  is  probably 


•  Much  allowance,  they  might  contend,  ought  to  be  made  for  an 
inspired  servant  of  "the  God"  ;  she  differed  from  the  usual  type, 
but  that  is  a  matter  between  "  the  God  "  and  herself. 

t  It  could  not  occur  in  the  gens  Antonia  :  it  became  familiar  in 
Asia  when  Falco  was  proconsul,  about  130. 

X  F  and  G  retain  the  term  actum,  which  is  correct,  though  the 
plural  is  much  commoner  than  the  singular. 


4o8        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

original,  for,  in  the  Latin*  form  ancillam  dei,  it  is  sus- 
ceptible of  a  sense  perfectly  consistent  with  the  original 
scene.  The  governor  knew  that  the  women  defended 
Thekla  as  a  devotee  of  unusual  style  acting  in  obedience 
to  the  commands  of  "the  God,"  who  had  imposed  on 
her  a  special  service ;  and  he  therefore  says,  "  I  release 
to  you  Thekla,  the  servant  of  '  the  God ' " — i.e.,  "  I  accept 
your  explanation  of  her  action  towards  Alexander  as  a 
ground  for  freeing  her  from  punishment." 

M.  Le  Blant  {Actes,  p.  174)  finds  in  the  use  of  the 
correct  term  diniitto  in  the  Latin  version  evidence  that 
the  scene  is  of  early  character.  But  it  is  obvious  that 
the  use  of  such  a  term  in  a  translation  from  the  Greek 
cannot  be  taken  as  evidence  of  anything  more  than  the 
translator's  skill.  Moreover,  in  this  case,  M.  Le  Blant 
makes  the  mistake  of  taking  Grabe's  Latin  rendering 
of  the  text  of  G  for  the  old  Latin  version.  Grabe  uses 
a  formula  which  M.  Le  Blant  considers  to  be  strikingly 
accurate ;  but  the  old  Latin  version  is  far  laoser  and 
freer  in  its  expression.  This  is  one  of  the  cases  in 
which  G  has  preserved  the  original  form  better  than 
the  Latin  version.  The  ease  with  which  Grabe  renders 
it  into  a  Latin  phrase  that  has  deceived  M.  Le  Blant, 
shows  that  the  Greek  is  a  literal  translation  of  the  Latin 
original. 


•  The  proceedings  were  of  course  in  Latin,  except  where  evidence 
had  to  be  taken  in  Greek  ;  and  the  original  actu?n  was  couched  in 
Latin.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Lipsius  has  been  leJ  astray  by 
his  false  view  as  to  the  excellence  of  E,  when  he  prefcis  its  text, 
Xeycoi/,  to  that  of  F  and  G,  y^ia^a^  ovTdts.  The  rule  wks  that  the 
sentence  must  be  written  out  first,  and  then  recited  from  th/  <locument. 
See  Le  Blant,  Actes,  pp.  168,  176. 


XVI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.     409 

7    The  Original  Tale  of  Thekla. 

Starting  from  the  arguments  advanced  in  the  preceding 
sections,  we  must  next  try  to  determine  the  chief  features 
of  the  original  tale,  selecting  those  incidents  which  are 
inexplicable  except  as  having  been  written  in  the  first 
century,  and  adding  to  them  others  which  are  needed 
to  connect  and  complete  them,  and  which  bear  obvious 
marks  of  high  antiquity.  It  would  be  best  to  try  to 
preserve  the  original  language  as  far  as  possible ;  but 
this  attempt  would  involve  a  minute  study  of  the  text 
and  comparison  of  the  various  versions  and  manuscripts. 
Perhaps  it  would  prove  an  impossible  task,  owing  to  the 
great  changes  that  have  been  introduced  during  later  ages ; 
but  even  the  attempt  is  precluded  to  one  who  has  not 
access  to  more  materials  than  I  have  before  me.*  A  brief 
outline  is  all  that  can  now  be  ventured  on. 

When  Paul  was  expelled  from  Antioch,  a  citizen  of 
Iconium,  a  just  man  (Onesiphorusf)  was  warned  (in  a 
dreamj)  that  Paul  was  about  to  come  to  that  city,  and 
was  told  where  he  should  find  him,  and  how  he  should 
recognise  him.  He  went  forth  to  the  place  where  the 
roads  met,  and  watched  those  who  were  passing  by  along 
the  Royal  Road  that  leads  to  Lystra,  until  he  saw  Paul 
approach,  and  recognised  his  appearance  (see  p.  31).  Paul 
returned  with  Onesiphorus,  lived  in  his  house,  and  declared 
the  word  of  God.  Meetings  were  held  in  the  house,  with 
bending  of  the  knees  and  breaking  of  bread. 

•  On  the  text  see  the  note  at  the  end  of  this  chapter. 

t  The  name  Onesiphorus  was  introduced  in  the  second  century. 
See  next  section. 

t  Perhaps  the  warning  was  originally  given  in  a  dream.  The 
name  of  Titus  is  certainly  a  later  addition.     See  next  section. 


4IO        The  Church  in  the  Roman  E^npire. 

A  noble  Iconian  family,  rich  and  influential,  lived  in 
an  adjoining  house.  A  chamber  in  an  upper  story  of  this 
house  overlooked  the  humbler  home  of  Onesiphorus ;  and 
Thekla,  to  whom  this  chamber  belonged,  could  thus  easily 
hear  Paul's  teaching.  She  was  fascinated  ;  and  her  mind 
was  alienated  from  her  ordinary  pursuits,  from  her  family, 
and  from  her  affianced  husband  Thamyris.  This  soon 
became  obvious,  and  drew  on  Paul  the  enmity  of  the  two 
powerful  families  of  Thamyris  and  Thekla.  Paul  was,  at 
their  instigation,  imprisoned  by  the  magistrates,  the  charge 
against  him  being  that  he  had  influenced  the  minds  of 
women  by  magical  arts,  and  caused  disorders  in  the 
city. 

At  night  Thekla  bribed  the  porter  with  her  bracelets 
to  let  her  go  out  of  the  house.  She  went  to  the  prison, 
and,  by  giving  the  gaoler  a  silver  mirror,  induced  him  to 
allow  her  access  to  Paul.  She  was  instructed  by  him 
throughout  the  night,  and  was  found  there  next  morning- 
in  the  way  already  described.  Paul  was  then  scourged 
and  expelled  from  the  city  by  the  magistrates,  the  severest 
penalty  within  their  competence.  Thekla  was  taken  to  her 
own  home  ;  and  it  was  hoped  that  in  course  of  time  she 
would  recover  her  reason,  and  be  free  from  the  influence 
of  the  magician  who  had  bewitched  her.  Some  interval 
elapsed,*  during   which  her    family   used   persuasion  and 


•  It  is  clear  that  the  course  of  events  required  some  time,  because 
the  interpolator  of  the  Myra  episode  was  under  the  impression 
that  several  years  elapsed ;  and  when  he  wished  to  bring  about  a 
subsequent  meeting  with  Paul  he  thought  it  necessary  to  put  the 
meeting  at  a  late  period.  He  must,  however,  have  exaggerated 
the  lapse  of  time,  as  all  the  events  belong  to  the  reign  of  Claudius. 
The  homily  attributed  to  Chrysostom  is  the  authority  at  this  point. 


XV [.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  TJiekla.     411 

moral  influence  :  her  parents,  lover,  relatives,  and  attend- 
ants tried  all  their  arts  to  bring  her  back  to  her  old 
•ways,  but  in  vain.     She  could  think  only  of  Paul. 

They  then  resorted  to  more  severe  measures.  One  of 
their  means  was  to  bring  her  before  a  tribunal  of  the  city,  - 
in  which  the  judges  {dikastai)  threatened  her  with  severe . 
penalties.  Thekla  at  last  escaped  (or  was  allowed  to 
escape),  and  was  pursued  by  Thamyris  ;  and  presumably 
it  was  believed  that,  if  he  once  forced  her  to  his  will,  she 
would  thereafter  be  under  his  influence,  and  freed  from  that 
of  Paul.  She  fled  into  the  bare  level  plains  that  stretch 
away  from  Iconium  on  all  sides  except  the  west. 
Thamyris  overtook  her  :  there  seemed  no  escape  from 
his  violence  :  she  prayed,  and  was  saved  in  some  way 
unknown. 

Thekla,  trying  to  find  Paul,  finally  came  to  Antioch. 
As  she  entered  the  city,  she  was  accosted  by  (Alexander)* 
the  high-priest,  president  of  the  festival  which  was  just 
beginning.  In  order  to  give  dignity  to  this  festival,  which 
was  of  an  official  character,  and  formed  part  of  the  Roman 
plan  for  consolidating  the  province  and  strengthening  the 
feeling  of  loyalty  in  it,  the  governor  of  Galatia  had  come 
on  a  visit  to  Antioch  ;  and  all  the  most  influential  and 
wealthy  citizens  of  the  southern  parts  of  the  province  had 
come  to  pay  their  respects  to  him.f  Alexander,  struck 
with  the  beauty  of  this  young  woman,  whose  appearance, 


•  The  name  was  introduced,  perhaps,  in  the  second  century. 

t  The  statue  of  Concord,  presented  by  Lystra  to  Antioch,  may 
have  been  given  on  some  such  occasion  as  this.  (See  p.  50.)  Die 
Chrysostom's  description  of  the  crowds  at  Apameia,  when  the 
Roman  proconsul  of  Asia  came  to  hold  the  conventus,  may  be  read 
in  iUustration  of  this  description.     See  his  Apameian  oration. 


412        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

unescorted,  in  the  street  seemed  to  indicate  her  status  out- 
side of  the  pale  of  respectability,  accosted  and  kissed  her. 
Thekla  repelled  his  advances,  appealing  to  the  right  of  a 
stranger  and  guest,  noble  in  her  own  city,  and  engaged 
in  the  service  of  "  the  God " ;  and  on  his  continued  im- 
portunity, she  tore  his  outer  garment  {chlainys\  and  pulled 
from  his  head  the  crown  that  marked  his  priestly  office. 
He  ordered  his  attendants,  who  were  of  course  numerous, 
to  arrest  her.     She  called  on  Paul  to  help  her. 

Being  brought  before  the  Roman  governor  straight  from 
the  scene  of  the  offence,  she  was  judged  forthwith  at  the 
festival  in  view  of  all  the  spectators.  The  charge  was 
sacrilege,  in  that  she  had  assaulted  the  high-priest  while 
wearing  his  sacred  official  dress.  The  offence  being  proved 
by  the  admission  of  the  accused,  she  was  condemned  to  be 
exposed  to  the  wild  beasts,  which  the  president  was  going 
to  exhibit  on  one  of  the  later  days  of  the  festival.  Much 
feeling  was  aroused  in  the  city  ;  and  the  women  especially 
took  the  part  of  Thekla,  as  being  in  the  service  of  "the 
God,"  and  carrying  out  the  conditions  imposed  on  her  by 
his  commands.  Thekla  was  permitted  to  continue  to 
observe  the  rule  of  purity  ;  and,  through  the  general  sym- 
pathy, the  noblest  lady  in  the  assembly.  Queen  Tryphaena, 
became  guarantee  for  her  appearance  when  required,  and 
took  her  meantime  to  her  own  house.  On  the  day  of  the 
procession  with  which  the  games  in  the  stadium  opened, 
Thekla  was  placed  on  the  top  of  a  cage,  in  which  was 
confined  the  chief  ornament  of  the  exhibition,  a  lioness. 
The  lioness  licked  her  feet,  protruding  its  tongue  between 
the  bars.  After  the  procession  Thekla  returned  to  Try- 
phaena's  charge  to  spend  her  last  night. 

During  the  night  Tryphsena,  whose  sympathies  had  been 


XVI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.     413 

already  strongly  excited  in  defence  of  the  young  woman, 
was  still  further  moved  in  her  favour  by  a  dream,  in 
which  her  own  deceased  daughter  directed  her  to  receive 
Thekla  as  a  new  daughter.*  In  the  morning  Tryphaena 
refused  to  give  up  Thekla  to  her  fate,  until  the  appearance 
of  soldiers  sent  by  the  governor  showed  her  that  it  was 
vain  to  resist.  She  then  led  Thekla  by  the  hand  to  the 
stadium,  escorted  by  her  numerous  train  of  attendants. 
The  feeling  of  the  crowd  had  in  part  changed,  and  many 
were  eager  for  the  spectacle.  But  the  women  were  still 
true  to  Thekla,  and  loudly  upbraided  the  governor,  sar- 
castically bidding  him  slay  them  all. 

In  the  arena  Thekla,  wearing  only  the  cincture,  accord- 
ing to  the  Roman  practice  at  such  executions,  was  bound 
to  a  stake.f  She  prayed,  saying,  "  My  Lord  and  my  God, 
the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  the  Messiah,  Thou  art  the 
helper  of  the  persecuted,  and  Thou  art  the  companion  of 
the  poor  ;  behold  Thy  handmaiden,  for  lo,  the  shame  of 
women  is  uncovered  in  me,  and  I  stand  in  the  midst  of  all 
this  people.  My  Lord  and  my  God,  remember  Thy  hand- 
maiden in  this  hour." 

In  the  venatio,  which  followed,  the  lioness,  which  had 
already  become  acquainted  with  Thekla,  recognised  her 
(perhaps  by  smelling,  as  in  the  case  of  Marciana)  and  did 
her  no  harm  When  a  bear  was  introduced,  the  lioness 
fought  with  it.  Alexander  then  suggested  that  Thekla 
should  be  fastened  to  bulls  and  thus  torn  asunder,  and  the 


•  The  incident  was  greatly  elaborated  in  the  growth  of  the  tale ; 
but  something  of  the  kind  seems  required  to  explain  the  action. 

t  This,  as  M.  Le  Blant  has  shown,  was  the  regular  practice. 
Some  of  the  additions  to  the  scene  are  inconsistent  with  this,  which 
constitutes  an  additional  argument  against  them. 


414         '^^i^  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

governor  reluctantly  consented.  As  the  preparations  were 
being  completed  Tryphaena  fainted  away  from  horror. 

Then  followed  the  release  of  Thekla,  as  already  related. 
She  returned  home  with  Tryphsena,  lived  as  her  daughter, 
and  converted  her  and  her  household. 

These  incidents,  in  their  simple  and  vivid  character,  take 
us  back  to  the  age  of  Claudius,  or  the  earlier  part  of  Nero's 
reign  ;  and  they  are  so  true  to  the  circumstances  of  that 
period,  that  they  could  not  possibly  have  been  constructed 
in  an  age  when  Christianity  had  come  to  be  a  proof  of 
disloyalty,  and  the  old  procedure  was  forgotten.  We  are 
carried  back  to  the  first  century,  and  to  a  writer  who 
remembered  at  least  the  local  surroundings  (see  p.  31  ff.), 
the  actual  characters  (Paul's  appearance,  Tryphaena),  and 
the  species  of  charges  made  about  A.D.  50-64.  Finally,  we 
consider  that  the  easiest  supposition  is  that  Thekla  was 
a  real  person,  and  her  actual  fortunes  were  related  by  the 
original  author,  with  perhaps  a  certain  amount  of  selection 
and  idealisation.  Like  Zahn,  we  should  find  no  chrono- 
logical difficulty  in  accepting  Jerome's  statement  that  the 
original  author,  a  presbyter  of  Asia,  was  degraded  from 
his  office  by  St.  John.  The  statement  is  quite  a  possible 
one ;  but  it  rests  on  too  poor  authority  to  be  accepted,  for 
Jerome  quotes  from  Tertullian,  and  TertuUian  does  not 
name  John.  Now  it  is  plain  that  Jerome's  words  are  at 
least  partly  taken  from  the  extant  passage  of  Tertullian  ; 
and,  unless  some  further  support  can  be  found,  we  must 
treat  what  he  adds  to  Tertullian  as  void  of  authority 
(see  also  p.  403/). 

The  question  naturally  suggests  itself, — Why  was  the 
author  of  this  tale  degraded  from  his  office?  We  might 
explain  it,  partly  because  he  represented  the  action  of  Paul 


X  VI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.     4 1 5 

as  causing  a  disturbance  of  family  life  and  family  ties 
which  the  Church  in  early  times  discouraged  (see  pp.  246, 
282),  and  partly  on  the  hypothesis  that  some  points  in 
his  teaching  were  considered  to  be  dangerous,  and  were 
subsequently  eliminated,  and  cannot  be  recovered.  More- 
over, there  remain  even  in  the  mutilated  and  re-written 
tale  some  traces  of  a  view  of  women's  rights  and  position, 
which  is  thoroughly  characteristic  of  the  Asian  social 
system,  and  thoroughly  opposed  to  the  ideas  favoured  by 
the  Church  (see  p.  161  f).  But  I  believe  the  answer  lies 
in  another  direction.  This  original  edition  is  not  the  one 
alluded  to  by  Tertullian.  It  is  not  written  by  a  native 
of  Asia,  but  is  native  to  Galatic  Phrygia,  where  the  scene 
lies,  and  redolent  of  the  soil  from  which  it  sprang.  It  is 
an  old  tale  about  Thekla,  in  which  Paul  appears  only  for 
a  brief  space  at  the  beginning  of  the  action,  and  from 
which  a  presbyter  of  Asia,  as  Tertullian  says,  constructed 
the  document  popularly  known  and  appealed  to  by  some 
as  an  authority  in  his  time.  Tertullian  was  clearly  aware 
that  this  presbyter  was  not  the  original  author.  He  does 
not  say  that  he  composed  the  tale,  but  that  he  constructed 
it  from  previously  existing  material.*  The  material  con- 
sisted of  the  tale  which  has  just  been  given,  and  additions 
were  made  by  the  presbyter. 


•This  statement  of  Tertullian  {de  Ba;f)tistno,  17),  " .  .  .  earn 
scripturam  construxit,  quasi  titulo  Fault  de  suo  cumulans" 
has  been  singularly  misinterpreted  by  writers  on  the  subject.  It 
clearly  implies  additions  made  by  the  presbyter  from  his  own  store 
to  a  document,  the  result  being  that  he  "augmented  it  with  the 
title  of  Paul."  His  additions  were  from  "  love  of  Paul,"  and  greatly 
increased  the  part  played  by  Paul  in  the  action.  Such  seems  the 
plain  inference  from  Tertullian's  words 


41 6        The  Chur'ch  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

8.  Revision  of  the  Tale  of  Thekla,  a.d.  130-150. 

About  A.D.  130,  or  soon  after,  the  tale  of  Thekla  was 
enlarged  by  a  reviser*  who  accepted  it  as  true,  and  wished 
to  connect  it  with  the  incidents  and  personages  recorded 
in  Acts  and  the  Epistles  of  Paul.  This  person  had  never 
seen  either  Antioch  or  Iconium,  but  probably  lived  in 
the  province  of  Asia ;  and  the  country  from  Thyatira  to 
Troas  best  suits  the  conditions  prescribed  by  the  follow- 
ing view  of  his  action.  He  belonged  to  the  Church  in  the 
period  before  the  differences  which  led  to  the  Montanist 
quarrels  began.  Hence  we  find  in  the  work,  as  he  left  it, 
no  references  to  the  questions  that  developed  soon  after 
A.D.  150;!  but  its  tone  is  that  of  the  conditions  amid 
which  Montanism  grew. 

This  reviser  introduced  into  the  tale  the  teaching,  which, 
while  of  a  strongly  ascetic  tendency,  never  actually  goes 
so  far  as  actual  disapproval  of  marriage,  but  which  might 
readily  be  pushed  to  that  extreme.  Abstaining  from  wine 
and  flesh  is  implicitly  recommended  ;  for  Paul's  food,  §  25, 
consists  only  of  bread,  herbs,  water,  and  salt  (the  last  only 
in  the  Syriac  version).  Lipsius,  pp.  448-57,  has  discussed 
these  indications  carefully,  though  his  conclusions  are 
different.  These  views  are  not  expressed  in  a  way  so 
extreme  as  to  have  been  expelled  by  later  revisers,  but 
belong  to  a  simpler  period  of  thought,  when  a  Catholic 
writer  indulged  in  an  "  extravagance  of  statement "  that 
has   almost   a    "heretical   aspect."}      "Such   skill   as   the 

*  For  brevity's  sake  I  state  opinions  dogmatically,  and  without 
argument. 

t  Zahn  puts  this  clearly  and  well,  Gott.  Gel.  Anz.,  1877,  p.  1305. 

X  So  Dr.  Gwynn,  p.  891,  following  Dr.  Salmon,  Introduction  to 
New  Testatftent,  2nd  ed. ,  p.  420. 


X  VI,    The  Acta  of  Paid  and  Thekla.     4 1 7 

writer  possessed  appears  chiefly  in  the  ingenuity  with 
which  he  works  in  genuine  Pauline  phrases,  all  of  them 
in   some  degree  turned   from   their  proper  bent."* 

Demas  and  Hermogenes  belong  to  this  period.  Their 
action  in  Iconium  is  an  anachronism  ;  but,  as  M.  Le  Blant 
shows  {Actes,  p.  97),  does  not  belong  to  a  late  period.  Their 
appearance  in  §  i  is  inconsistent  with  §  3,  where  Paul 
seems  to  advance  alone  towards  Onesiphorus.  They  be- 
long to  a  series  of  interpolations,  intended  to  connect  Acta 
TheklcB  with  circumstances  and  personages  mentioned  in 
2  Tim.  Demas  "  forsook  Paul,  having  loved  this  present 
world"  (iv.  10);  and  Hermogenes  "turned  away  from" 
him  (i.  15).  The  name  of  Paul's  host  at  Iconium,  Onesi- 
phorus, was  also  introduced  at  this  time,  being  suggested 
by  the  words,  "the  house  of  Onesiphorus,  for  he  oft 
refreshed  me"  (i.  16,  cp  .iv.  19).  Probably  the  host  bore 
in  the  original  tale  a  native,  non-Greek,  name,  like 
Thekla.f  As  Lipsius  has  remarked,  the  allusion  to  Paul's 
sufferings  at  Antioch,  Iconium,  and  Lystra,  in  2  Tim.  Hi.  1 1, 
probably  directed  the  reviser's  attention  to  that  Epistle, 
when  he  was  seeking  to  connect  a  tale  whose  scene  lay  in 
these  towns  with  Paul's  own  words.  Moreover,  as  Timothy 
was  a  native  of  Lystra,  it  seemed  to  the  reviser  natural 
that  the  characters  of  the  tale  should  be  mentioned  by 
Paul  in  writing  to  him.  The  reviser  also  found  in  the 
same  Epistle  an  allusion  to  a  coppersmith  (which  he  used 
in  §  i),  and  to  Titus  as  travelling  apart  from  Paul  (which 
made  him  introduce  Titus  as  describing  Paul  to  Onesi- 
phorus in  §  2). 

•  Gwynn,  p.  890. 

t  The  name  of  Onesiphorus'  wife  and  of  one  son  seem  also  to  be 
non-Greek  ;  but  they  have  been  much  corrupted  in  the  MSS. 

27 


41 8        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

In  the  original  tale  Paul  played  too  slight  a  part,  and 
this  the  reviser  corrected.  He  introduced  the  residence  of 
Onesiphorus  and  his  family  with  Paul  in  the  tomb  on  the 
road  to  Antioch,*  praying  for  Thekla's  deliverance,  and 
the  journey  of  Thekla  to  Myra  for  a  last  meeting  with 
Paul. 

Part  of  the  scene  in  the  tomb,  with  its  ascetic  diet,  is 
distinctly  of  this  period.  M.  Le  Blant  has  argued  also  that 
the  residence  in  a  grave  by  the  roadside  is  a  sign  of  early 
date  {Actes,  p.  269) ;  and  he  illustrates  this  detail  by 
similar  real  events.  The  second  century  is  the  date  to 
which  M.  Le  Blant  inclines  on  p.  97. 

The  journey  to  Myra  is  due  to  the  desire  for  a  final 
recognition  of  Thekla's  faith  by  the  Apostle.  It  was  intro- 
duced by  one  who  had  a  certain  acquaintance  with  the 
topography  of  Asia  Minor,  and  who  selected  the  nearest 
point  on  the  south  coast  visited  by  Paul.  This  was  Myra 
according  to  the  text  of  Acts  xxvi.  30,  as  preserved  in 
Codex  Bez(2.\  But  this  person  cannot  have  had  any 
personal  acquaintance  with  Antioch ;  for  he  evidently 
imagined  that  the  journey  to  Myra  from  Antioch  was  quite 
a  short  one.if  Such  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  topo- 
graphy implies  that  he  belonged  to  a  district  out  of  direct 

*  Daphne  was  substituted  when  the  Syrian  Antioch  was  intro- 
duced. 

t  See  p.  155.  In  one  Latin  version,  D,  the  more  familiar  name 
Smyrna  is  substituted  for  the  unknown  Myra  by  a  translator  ignorant 
of  Asia  Minor,  and  of  the  very  name  of  Myra. 

\  This  we  see  because  (i)  Paul's  stay  at  Myra  could  not  be  long, 
and  there  was  no  time  for  news  of  his  arrival  to  spread  far,  and  for 
Thekla  to  go  to  him ;  (2)  Tryphaena  heard  that  Thekla  was  going 
from  Myra  to  Iconium,  and  sent  offering  her  gifts.  Both  considera- 
tions imply  rapid  communication  between  the  two  places. 


XVI,    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.     419 

communication  with  Antioch,  such  as  Mysia  or  the  Troad  ; 
and  that  Myra  and  Antioch  were  vaguely  known  to  him 
as  distant  cities,  one  on  the  south  coast,  and  the  other 
connected  by  road  with  the  same  coast. 

The  Myra  episode  has  several  marks  of  early  character. 
M.  le  Blant  quotes  from  M.  Heuzey  *  the  explanation  of  the 
alteration  which  Thekla  made  in  her  dress.  By  a  change 
m  the  arrangement  of  her  tunic  at  the  girdle,  and  by  some 
use  of  the  needle,  she  so  transformed  it,  that  it  passed  for 
a  man's  tunic.f  This  description,  so  brief  yet  so  particular, 
was  perfectly  clear  in  the  second  century  to  readers  familiar 
with  the  old  Greek  dress ;  but  it  was  unintelligible  to 
persons  living  in  a  later  period,  when  the  style  of  dress  had 
changed.  We  can  now  understand  it  by  an  effort  of 
archaeological  imagination.  Thekla  wore  the  woman's 
long  tunic,  reaching  to  the  feet  and  confined  by  a  girdle 
round  the  waist.  Ordinarily,  when  a  woman  wished  to 
take  active  exercise,  she  took  hold  of  the  tunic  above  the 
girdle,  and  pulled  it  up,  so  that  it  formed  a  wide  loose  fold, 
which  hung  down  over  the  girdle  round  her  body,  and 
which  she  usually  confined  by  a  second  girdle  ;  thus  the 
tunic,  even  though  as  short  as  a  man's,  still  continued  dis- 
tinguishable as  a  feminine  garment.  Thekla,  instead  of 
allowing  the  fold  to  hang  down  outside,  kept  it  inside,  so 
that  it  was  unseen ;  and  she  sewed  the  tunic  together  in 
this  position,  thus  shortening  it  by  a  broad  "  tuck."  Her 
girdle  would  conceal  the  seam,  and  the  garment  would 
resemble  a  man's  short  tunic.  The  description  was  evi- 
dently quite  unintelligible  to  the  Latin  translators. 

It  is  also  clear  that  the  Myra  episode  was  inserted  before 

•  Actes  des  Martyrs,  p.  322. 


420        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

the  confusion  with  the  Syrian  Antioch  had  been  caused  ; 
for  it  would  be  absurd  to  make  Thekla  go  from  the  Syrian 
Antioch  to  Myra  to  meet  Paul. 

The  reviser  evidently  connected  the  tale  with  Paul's  third 
journey.  His  reasoning,  apparently,  was  that  the  action 
could  not  be  conceived  as  taking  place  at  Paul's  first  visit 
to  Iconium,  for  he  disappears  from  the  action  so  quickly ; 
whereas  Paul  remained  in  the  country,  and  soon  returned 
to  Iconium  after  his  first  expulsion  or  flight  from  it.  More- 
over, neither  Barnabas  nor  Timothy,  Paul's  companions  on 
his  first  two  journeys,  played  any  part  in  the  tale ;  and  the 
reviser  could  imagine  that  unimportant  characters  should 
be  omitted,  but  not  important  personages  like  these.  On 
the  third  journey  nothing  is  recorded  in  Acts  about  Paul ; 
and  there  was  therefore  a  suitable  gap  in  which  to  introduce 
the  tale  of  Thekla.  Allowing  a  fair  interval  to  elapse,  he 
found  that,  by  the  time  Thekla  was  victorious  over  all  her 
trials,  Paul  might  have  arrived  at  Myra  on  his  way  to 
Jerusalem. 

The  ri;viser  showed  some  skill  in  connecting  the  tale 
of  Thekla  with  the  record  of  Paul's  life ;  and  in  the  case 
of  Titus  this  is  conspicuous.  The  argument  has  often 
been  advanced  that  Titus  is  spoken  of  in  Gal.  ii.  i  as 
if  he  were  familiar  to  the  Galatians,  The  presbyter  ap- 
parently believed  that  Titus  (who,  as  appears  from  Acts, 
did  not  travel  along  with  Paul  on  the  third  journey) 
went  before  him  through  Iconium  to  Corinth,  whence 
he  returned  to  meet  Paul  in  Macedonia  (2  Cor.  ii.  13, 
vii.  6). 

The  name  of  Falconilla  was  introduced  at  this  time  (see 
p.  407),  and  the  scene  in  the  stadium  at  Antioch  was 
modified  in  some  details.     The  self-baptism  of  Thekla  is 


XVI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  TheJcla.     421 

inconsistent  with  her  being  fastened  to  the  stake,  which 
was  probably  the  original  attitude  ;  and  the  cloud  that 
veiled  Thekla  was  probably  inserted  at  the  same  time.  The 
references  to  baptism  may  probably  all  be  taken  as  inser- 
tions of  this  period,  except  that  in  §  25  (p.  422). 

The  attitude  assumed  by  Thekla,  both  in  the  theatre  at 
Iconium  and  in  the  stadium  at  Antioch,  was  with  hands 
outstretched  in  the  attitude  of  crucifixion.  M.  le  Blant 
{ActeSy  p.  297)  quotes  various  passages,  showing  that  this 
attitude  was  common  for  martyrs  and  for  persons  praying.* 
But  the  custom  seems  to  belong  to  the  second  and  later 
centuries,  and  the  statements  about  Thekla's  attitude 
(which  vary  greatly  in  different  MSS.)  must  be  all  con- 
sidered interpolations,  probably  of  this  period. 

Lipsius  quotes  a  number  of  characteristics  which  prove 
that  the  Acta  belong  to  a  date  not  later  than  A.D.  190. 
These  seem  to  me  to  fall  into  two  classes;  (i)  those  which  are 
consistent  with  a  first  century  date — e.g.^  the  simple  formula 
of  baptism  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  (§  34),  the  simple 
forms  of  worship  (bending  the  knee,  breaking  of  bread, 
declaring  the  word  of  God,  §  5),  the  meeting  in  private 
houses  (§§  5,  7).  (2)  Those  which  rather  point  to  the  second 
century,  or  at  least  a  period  of  more  developed  forms  than 
the  middle  of  the  first  century — ^.^.,  prayers  for  the  heathen 
dead  (§  29),  designation  of  baptism  as  "  the  seal  "  (§  25),  the 
conception  of  baptism  as  a  safeguard  against  temptation 
(§§  25,  40).  It  will  be  found  that  the  division  to  which 
the  investigation  has  led  us  independently,  corresponds 
well  with  this  evidence. 

•  The  Christians  would  not  pray  in  the  heathen  attitude,  ^almas 
ad  calum  tendentes.  Tertullian,  de  Orat.,  17,  says  the  Christians^ 
from  a  feeling  of  humility,  did  not  raise  their  hands  high. 


/■ 


422         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

M.  le  Blant's  chapter  {Actes,  p.  80)  on  the  method  of 
interpolation  of  some  hagiographical  documents  is  most 
instructive  in  regard  to  the  history  of  the  Acta^  and  he 
gives  some  striking  examples  of  the  way  in  which  old  texts 
were  worked  over,  additions  being  made  in  some  places 
and  complete  changes  in  others  (the  changes  being  some- 
times almost  motiveless  in  their  inanity,  sometimes  con- 
ditioned by  a  distinct  purpose). 

The  author  of  this  revised  edition  may  be  identified  as  the 
Asian  presbyter  said  by  Tertullian  to  have  constructed  the 
document  by  adding  to  older  material.  His  date  is  deter- 
mined both  by  internal  evidence  (i,  character  of  the 
teaching  of  Paul,  already  described  ;  2,  he  still  seems  to 
consider  Antioch  and  Iconium  as  in  the  same  province), 
and  by  inference  from  Tertullian,  who  implies  that  the 
work  was  known  and  quoted  as  an  authority  and  not  as  a 
work  of  yesterday.  It  seems  hard  to  think  that  Tertullian 
could  have  written  as  he  did,  if  the  work  had  not  been 
"  constructed "  at  least  twenty-five  or  thirty  years  pre- 
viously— i.e.^  the  revision  was  older  than  165  or  170. 

We  gladly  acquit  the  presbyter  of  making  Paul  go  with 
Thekla  to  Antioch  and  play  the  disgraceful  part  assigned 
to  him  there  ;  for  this  episode  is  necessarily  connected  with 
the  trial  and  attempted  burning  of  Thekla,  and  is  incon- 
sistent with  the  flight  of  Thekla  to  the  wilderness.  More- 
over, when  Thekla  asked  for  baptism,  there  was  at  this 
stage  of  the  growth  of  the  legend  no  reason  why  it  should 
be  refused  ;  whereas  at  a  later  stage  it  must  be  refused  in 
order  to  preserve  the  self-baptism  at  Antioch.  Again,  the 
presbyter  did  not  object  to  Thekla's  dressing  like  a  man  ; 
but  the  composer  of  her  interview  with  Paul  did  evidently 
object  to  it,  and  makes  Paul  formally  express  disapproval 


XVI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.     423 

of  it  In  the  presbyter's  revision,  then,  Paul,  after  fasting 
and  praying  for  Thekla's  deliverance,  went  on  to  Antioch 
and  Ephesus  (see  chap.  v.). 


9.  The  Iconian  Legend  of  Thekla. 

About  A.D.  140-160  Lycaonia  was  united  with  Cilicia 
and  Isauria,  and  the  "three  Eparchies"  were  governed 
by  an  official  of  consular  rank.  Iconium  was  henceforth 
a  city  of  higher  dignity,  metropolis  of  an  eparchy,  and 
a  colony.  As  it  was  now  completely  separated  from 
Antioch,  the  situation  implied  in  the  tale  of  Thekla  was 
no  longer  suitable  to  existing  conditions.  Moreover,  when 
Christianity  became  the  strongest  element  in  the  city,  the 
close  union  between  the  Christians  and  their  co-religionists 
in  other  towns  was  replaced  by  a  certain  emotion  of 
municipal  patriotism  and  a  feeling  of  distinction  from 
other  cities.  Thekla  was  the  heroine  of  Iconium,  and  it 
seemed  right  that  the  city  should  be  signalised  as  the 
scene  of  her  triumph,  and  it  had  more  right  to  the  presence 
of  a  Roman  governor  than  Antioch,  which  was  not  a 
metropolis.  Thus  an  Iconian  legend  grew  up,  and  was 
finally  incorporated  in  the  tale,  to  the  effect  that  Thekla 
was  tried,  condemned  by  the  governor  to  the  flames,  and 
miraculously  rescued.  This  legend  involved  the  dropping 
out  of  the  older  tale  of  Thekla's  sufferings  and  flight.  The 
meeting  with  Paul  in  the  tomb  and  journey  with  him  to 
Antioch  were  substituted  for  the  episode  in  the  wilderness. 

It  is  clear,  however,  that  the  scene  in  the  theatre  de- 
veloped separately  from  the  meeting  with  Paul.  These 
were  two  independent  floating  legends,  which  were  awk- 
wardly   put   side    by    side    in    the    text    without    being 


424        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire, 

properly  worked  into  one  another.  The  literary  form  of 
these  additions  is  defective  ;  and  they  show  a  vulgarity 
of  conception  and  poverty  in  creative  power  which  places 
them  below  the  work  of  the  presbyter. 

The  Iconian  legend  was  familiar  to  Gregory  of  Nyssa, 
and  other  writers  of  the  fourth  century  ;*  and  appears  even 
to  be  older  than  A.D.  300,  to  judge  from  the  account  given 
by  Dr.  Gwynn  of  the  evidence  of  Methodius,  f  Probably 
there  were  for  a  time  copies  of  both  the  presbyter's  and 
the  Iconian  revision  in  circulation  ;  but  the  latter  soon 
prevailed,  for  the  deliverance  from  fire  was  too  striking 
a  detail  to  be  omitted. 

A  general  revision  of  the  text,  with  slight  modifications, 
additions,  and  modernisations,  also  continued  to  be  made 
as  time  went  on.  A  proof  of  this  appears  in  the  title 
proconsul,  which  is  applied  in  most  MSS.  to  the  governors. 
Now  there  never  was  a  time  when  a  proconsul  was  resident 
at  Iconium  or  Antioch,  or  was  governor  of  the  province 
in  which  either  city  was  situated.  We  often  find  ana- 
chronisms in  the  way  of  giving  to  an  officer  a  title 
appropriate  to  the  period  in  which  the  writer  lived,  but 
inappropriate  to  that  in  which  his  scene  lay  ;  here  the 
anachronism  cannot  be  explained  in  that  way.  Dr. 
Gwynn  suggests  that  a  writer,  who  lived  in  Asia  before 
A.D.  190,  named  the  governor  of  Galatia  proconsul, 
"  because  he  had  himself  been  accustomed  to  see  a  pro- 

•  The  Iconian  revision  was  unknown  to  the  author  of  the 
Homily  attributed  to  Chrysostom ;  but  the  date  of  the  Homily  is 
not  known. 

t  I  have  not  access  to  his  dialogue  de  angelica  virginitate  et 
castitate.  Photius  is  said  to  declare  that  the  work  had  been 
adulterated. 


XVI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla.     425 

consul  at  Ephesus  or  Smyrna."  *  But  no  parallel  is  known 
at  that  period,  for  titles  are  generally  given  very  accurately 
in  documents  of  the  second  century  ;  and  such  accuracy 
is  usually  taken  as  a  test  of  date.  The  title  proconsul  is 
found  in  a  very  uncertain  way  in  the  MSS.,t  and  has 
probably  crept  gradually  into  the  text,  after  the  meaning 
and  distinction  of  the  Roman  titles  had  been  forgotten, 
through  a  process  of  ignorant  archaising  under  the  influ- 
ence of  other  old  Acta^  in  which  the  title  was  rightly  used. 
Apparently  the  false  title  was  first  introduced  in  speeches 
addressed  to  the  governor,  and  gradually  spread  to  some 
other  cases ;  and  it  is  far  more  generally  used  in  the 
late  Iconian  narrative  than  in  the  old  Antiochian  scene. 
If,  as  is  not  improbable,  the  Latin  text  c,  in  which  the 
title  is  often  used,  was  of  African  origin,  the  writer  would 
be  familiar  with  similar  tales  in  which  proconsuls  were 
prominent. 

M.  Le  Blant  {Actes,  p.  109)  points  out  that  the  governor 

•  Diet.  Chr.  Biogr.,  iv.,  p.  893-4,  where  he  has  not  noticed  that 
at  the  period  in  question  Antioch  and  Iconium  were  in  separate 
provinces.     See  above,  p.  iii. 

t  The  correct  titles,  Hegemon,  Prceses,  are  commoner  in  the  MSS. 
In  the  scene  at  Antioch  one  of  the  Latin  MSS.,  D,  uses  only  prcBses, 
while  another,  c,  uses  proconsul  very  often,  and  the  third,  m, 
occasionally.  In  the  same  scene  the  term  proconsul  occurs  only 
once  in  the  Greek  MSS.,  which  have  it  frequently  in  the  Iconian 
scene.  Again,  we  find  cases  where  the  \a\.\&  proconsul  occurs  only 
in  the  poorer  Greek  MSS.,  while  the  better  have  hegemon — e.g., 
§  16,  1.  6,  where  two  MSS.,  F  and  G,  read  hegemon  with  the 
Syriac  version,  while  all  Lipsius'  other  MSS.  have  proconsul. 
Lipsius  includes  the  Latin  MSS  in  this  latter  class,  but  D  has 
presses.  Moreover,  proconsul  in  the  Greek  MSS.  is  rarely  used, 
except  in  the  vocative,  in  which  it  is  least  likely  to  belong  to  the 
original  text,  and  most  likely  to  be  a  later  insertion.  Basil  uses 
proconsul  at  Iconium,  hegemon  at  Antioch. 


426        The  Church  in  the  Rofnan  Empire, 

at  Iconium  was  assisted  by  a  council.  Such  assessors  are 
a  well-known  feature  of  Roman  procedure  (pp.  223-28). 
Undoubtedly  accuracy  in  such  points  is  a  proof  of  good 
character  in  a  tale ;  but  the  Iconian  reviser  was  quite 
as  likely  as  the  Asian  presbyter  to  introduce  the  procedure 
by  assessors  (consilium),  which  was  in  regular  use  at  the 
time  when  he  was  writing. 

In  subsequent  history,  the  worship  of  Thekla  as  a  saint 
became  established  widely  in  Asia  Minor ;  first  of  all  in 
the  southern  parts,  and  especially  in  Seleuceia  of  Isauria. 
There  grew  up  at  each  shrine,  doubtless,  a  foundation 
legend  (lepo'i  \o7o?),*  and  such  legends  found  their  way 
into  the  text.  In  this  way  Thekla  was  made  to  travel  to 
Seleuceia,  and  to  pass  through  various  adventures  there. 
In  some  MSS.  she  is  even  described  as  going  to  Rome 
and  dying  there.  But  we  need  not  enter  on  these  Seleucian 
and  later  developments,  nor  touch  on  the  statements  about 
her  age,  which  are  devoid  of  authority. 


Note  i.  Pauline  Chronology. — Assuming  a  historical  element 
in  the  tale  of  Thekla,  we  must  try  to  fix  the  date.  My  view  is  that, 
after  his  first  journey,  Paul  was  possessed  with  the  idea  that  his 
work  lay  towards  the  west  (Acts  xv.  38  ;  Gal.  passim) ;  and  no 
long  interval  is  likely  to  have  occurred  in  his  work.  Particularly 
after  the  trial  before  Gallio  his  views  developed  rapidly.  He  recog- 
nised that  his  work  lay  in  the  Empire,  which  protected  the  Christians 
against  the  Jews ;  and  his  thought  developed  from  the  stage  seen 
in  I'hessalomans  to  that  in  Galatians.  Accepting  Spitta's  view  that 
Acts  XV.  1-33  precedes  Acts  xiii.,  xiv.,  we  date  Paul's  first  journey 
April,  49-July,  51  ;  his  second  began  in  April,  52.  He  came  to 
Corinth,  and  wrote  to  the  Thessalonians  in  autumn  53.    The  rupture 

*  Any  one  who  wishes  to  study  the  formation  of  such  legends  in 
the  country  should  go  to  Sasima  in  Cappadocia,  now  called  Hassa 
Keui,  and  ask  the  priest  to  tell  the  story  of  the  foundation  of  the 
village  church  by  St.  Makrina,  to  whom  it  is  dedicated. 


XVI.    The  Acta  of  Paul  and  Thekla,     427 

with  the  Jews  took  place,  as  usual,  soon  after  his  arrival ;  Gallio 
was  proconsul  i  July,  53-30,  June,  54.  In  spring  55  Paul  went  to 
Ephesus,  whence  he  wrote  to  the  Galatians  (see  p.  167) ;  after  visit- 
ing Jerusalem  and  Antioch,  he  resided  in  Ephesus  from  autumn 
55  till  the  end  of  57  (the  three  months,  Acts  xix.  8,  are  probably 
included  in  the  two  years,  xix.  10),  Then,  after  visiting  Macedonia 
and  Greece,  he  reached  Patara  and  Myra  in  late  summer  58.  His 
first  residence  in  Iconium  was  in  winter  49-50 ;  and  the  story  of 
Thekla  belongs  to  the  spring,  summer,  and  autumn  of  A.D.  50. 

Note  2.  Family  of  Antonia  Tryph^na,  Queen-Consort  in 
Thrace,  Queen  of  Pontus  (Mommsen,  Eph.  Ep.  II.  p.  259!!. : — 

Antonia.  =pMarcus  Antonius  Triumvir.  =FOctavia, 

I  sister  of  Augustus. 


Zenon         Pytbodoros=f=Antonia.  Antonia.=T=Nero  Drusus. 


of  Laodiceia.  of  Tralles. 


T 


I  r— J  I -^ n. 

Polemon.(i)=i=Pylhodoris.(2)  CLAUDIUS,     Germanicus. 

I  Emperor,  a.d.  41-54.  I 


Cotys,       =pTRYPII^NA,       Polemon,  ?(3)         Zenon,C4)  Caligula, 


King  of  Thrace, 
di  before  A.D.  19. 


bom  B.C.  8,  or  dynast  of  Olba.       King  of  Armenia         Emperor, 

earlier.  Major,  A.D.  18-35.         A.D.  37-41. 


n — 1 


Rhoemetalces,(S)  Polemon,  (6)  Cotys,  (7) 

King  of  Thrace,  a.d.  37-46.  King  of  Pontus.  King  of  Armenia  Minor, 

A.D.  37-? 

(i)  Polemon  Eusebes  was  made  King  of  Lycaonia  and  perhaps  part 
of  Cilicia  in  39  B.C. ;  but  this  territory,  soon  afterwards,  was  seized 
by  Amyntas.  Polemon  became  King  of  Pontus  38  or  37,  King  of 
Armenia  Minor  33,  and  King  of  Bosporus  14.  He  died  about  8  B.C. 
(2)  Pythodoris,  bom  about  ;i;i,  married  King  Polemon  B.C.  13  or  12, 
and  reigned  as  Queen  of  Pontus  after  his  death  till  some  unknown 
date  after  A.D.  21.  (3)  The  eldest  son  of  Polemon  and  Pythodoris 
was  probably  M.  Antonius  Polemon ;  but  Strabo  (p.  556)  does  not 
mention  his  name.  He  aided  his  mother  in  governing  Pontus  with- 
out the  title  of  king ;  and,  soon  after  the  death  of  Archelaus  in 
17  AD.,  he  became  dynast  of  Olba.  In  the  passage  of  Strabo  the 
words  8vua(TTfii(i  S"  6  np(a^vT[(p]os  uvrSiv  are  to  be  taken  as  a  subsequent 
addition  made  by  the  writer  to  the  following  line.  He  wrote 
originally  (rwhioiKti,  and  altered  it  to  (ivvhiaicei,  when  the  change 
occurred  ;  the  words  bwaarfCft  k.t.X.  have  got  into  the  wrong  place, 
and  are  incorrectly  applied  to  the  son  of  Tryphsena.  The  sense  is 
"of  the   sons  of   Pythodoris   one   used  to  govern  along  with   his 


428        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

mother  without  regal  title,  and  is  now  a  dynast — viz.,  the  older  of 
them."  Polemon  ruled  at  least  eleven  years  at  Olba,  as  we  learn 
from  coins.*  (4)  M.  Antonius  Zenon  was  no  doubt  his  full  name. 
(5-7)  The  brothers  were  taken  to  Rome  on  the  death  of  their  father, 
and  educated  there  along  with  the  young  Caligula.  Tiberius  was 
too  jealous  to  allow  them  to  reign.  Caligula,  as  soon  as  he  came 
to  the  throne,  made  them  all  kings,  A.D.  37.  (6)  Polemon  became 
King  of  Pontus  and  Bosporus  37,  lost  Bosporus  and  received  Olba  in 
exchange  41,  lost  Pontus  63,  died  probably  before  72. 

Note  3.  Text. — Lipsius,  Proleg.^  p.  cv,  justly  praises  the  Syriac 
version  as  retaining  much  that  the  Greek  MSS.  have  lost  or  altered, 
and  as  often  approaching  more  closely  than  they  do  to  the  arche- 
type. Among  the  three  Latin  MSS.  he  assigns  the  first  rank  to  c, 
as  approaching  nearest  in  character  to  E,  to  which  he  attributes  a 
similar  rank  among  the  Greek  MSS.,  and  he  puts  m  second  in  point 
of  excellence.  It  is  difficult  to  judge  about  the  Latin  texts,  for  the 
plan  followed  by  Lipsius  often  leads  him  to  omit  variants.  But,  so 
far  as  I  can  judge  from  using  D,  it  retains  some  original  features 
which  are  not  quoted  by  Lipsius  from  tn  and  c.  Occasionally,  how- 
ever, the  latter  are  preferable  to  D  ;  and  they  seem  to  be  inde- 
pendently translated  from  the  Greek,  but  perhaps  at  a  little  later 
date,  and  therefore  they  approximate  more  closely  to  the  Greek. 
Schlau  believes  that  D  may  represent  a  translation  of  the  second 
century  (Zahn,  Gott.  Gel.  Anz.,  1877,  p.  1293);  but  its  Latinity  is 
rather  of  the  fifth  than  the  second  journey.  There  was  probably  no 
Latin  version  till  after  Jerome's  time,  when  Thekla's  worship  had 
spread  to  the  west.  The  Syriac  version  seems  earlier  than  the 
Latin ;  one  of  the  MSS.  belongs  to  the  sixth  century.  Among  the 
Greek  MSS.,  G,  F,  and  M  show  archaic  touches  lost  in  the  others. 

Note  4.  Castelius. — This  fictitious  governor,  resident  at  Iconium, 
is  supposed  by  Gutschmid  to  be  historical,  and  his  name  to  be  really 
Caesellius  {Rhein.  Mus.,  1864,  p.  397);  and  this  impossible  sug- 
gestion (no  officer  Caesellius  is  known  about  A.D.  50)  has  been 
quoted  on  a  par  with  his  brilliant  identification  of  Tryphaena.  The 
form  Castelius  is  as  old  as  Basil;  but  the  Latin  variant  Sextilius 
points  perhaps  to  Statilius  as  the  original  form, 

•  This  account  of  Tryphaena's  brother  is  a  hypothetical  addition. 
He  died  certainly  before  41. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

THE   CHURCH  FROM  120    TO   170  A.D. 

WE  have  seen  that,  before  the  end  of  the  first 
century,  there  was,  as  a  rule,  an  individual  episkopos 
in  each  community,  who  tended,  in  fact,  to  be  permanent, 
but  who  possessed  no  official  rank  except  as  a  presbyteros. 
It  may  be  argued  that  the  account  we  have  given  of  his 
position  is  inconsistent  and  self-contradictory.  We  acknow- 
ledge that  this  is  so  ;  but  this  does  not  prove  it  to  be  untrue. 
The  office  was  in  process  of  rapid  growth,  and  no  account 
of  it  can  be  true  which  makes  it  logical  and  self-consistent 
in  character.  It  had  vast  potentiality,  for  the  whole  future 
of  the  Church  was  latent  in  it  ;  yet,  in  its  outward  appear- 
ance and  its  relation  to  the  past,  it  was  humble,  and  the 
episkopos  was  merely  a  presbyter  in  special  circumstances.* 
His  actual  influence  depended  on  his  personal  character. 
The  order  of  prophets  still  existed ;  but,  to  take  an 
example,  what  influence  was  any  prophet  likely  to  have 
in  Smyrna  except  with  Polycarp's  approval  ?  But  if  the 
idea  had  been  possible  in  Smyrna  that  Polycarp's  action 
was  guided  to  the  faintest  degree  by  thought  of  self, 
his   influence  would   never   have    existed.      His   personal 

•  If  the  view  we  have  taken  is  correct,  the  question  whether  an 
episkopos  exercised  any  teaching  or  reliy^ious  duties  shows  a  mis- 
apprehension of  the  situation.  The  episkopos  may  do  anything  that 
a  presbyter  may  do,  for  he  is  a  presbyter.  He  may  be  a  prophet  and 
speak  with  inspiration,  for  inspiration  may  come  to  all. 

430 


430        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

influence,  however,  was  undoubtedly  increased  by  the 
important  administrative  duties  which  he  performed  as 
episkopos ;  and,  in  all  probability,  his  position  in  Smyrna 
did  much  to  impress  on  the  mind  of  his  contemporaries 
in  general,  and  of  Ignatius  in  particular,  a  new  conception 
of  the  episcopal  office.  Yet,  even  after  his  death,  the  letter 
to  the  church  at  Philomelion,  written,  as  we  must  under- 
stand, by  the  episkopos  who  succeeded  him,  is  couched  in 
the  old  style.  The  writer  is  merely  the  impersonal  mouth- 
piece of  the  community  at  Smyrna. 

An  important  step  was  made  when  the  Christian  com- 
munities began  to  accommodate  themselves  to  Roman  law 
by  enrolling  themselves  as  Benefit  Clubs,  That  this  step 
had  been  taken  by  the  third  century  is  certain  in  a  con- 
siderable number  of  cases,  and  may  safely  be  assumed  as 
general.*  As  to  the  time  when  the  custom  began  no  evi- 
dence remains  ;  but  I  see  no  reason  why  it  should  not  have 
begun  as  early  as  Hadrian's  reign,  simultaneously  with  the 
outburst  of  Apologetic  literature  and  the  general  rapproche- 
ment between  the  Church  and  the  Empire,  A.D.  130-40.! 

*  Le  Blant,  Actes,  pp.  282,  288;  De  Rossi,  Roma  Sotterr.,  ii., 
p.  82  ;  and  my  papers  in  Expositor,  December  1888,  February  1889. 
Hatch,  Bampton  Lectures,  p.  152,  collects  the  facts  well,  but 
states  them  without  sufficient  legal  precision.  The  right  of  forming 
associations,  provided  these  were  not  in  themselves  illegal,  belonged 
theoretically  to  all  except  soldiers ;  but  practically  almost  all  as- 
sociations were  illegal.  The  exception  in  the  case  of  poor  persons, 
chiefly  for  purposes  of  burial,  came  to  be  important  under  Hadrian, 
Digest, /^"j,  22  ;  C /.  Z.,  xiv.,  2112.  The  technical  name  is  cc//^^a 
tenuiorum,  ox  funeraticia,  p.  359^. 

t  In  1882  {Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies ,  p.  347),  unaware  of  the 
bearings  of  the  case,  I  tried  to  prove  that  a  benefaction  to  the  poor, 
mentioned  in  the  fourth-century  legend  of  Avircius  Marcellus  as 
taking  place  in  Hieropolis  of  Phrygia,  and  beginning  as  early  as 
the  second  century,  was  historical. 


XVII.    The  Church  from   120  to   170  A.D.    431 

The  general  development  of  such  collegia  over  the  Empire 
was  quite  in  accordance  with  Hadrian's  broad  views  and 
his  superiority  to  the  narrow  Roman  idea. 

Christian  communities,  registered  as  collegia  temdorum, 
held  property.  The  collegium  had  to  be  registered  in  the 
name  of  some  individual,  who  acted  as  its  head  and  repre- 
sentative, and  who  held  the  property  that  belonged  to  it. 
We  can  hardly  doubt  that  the  episkopos  was  the  represen- 
tative of  the  collegium,  for  he  already  acted  as  representative 
of  the  community  in  its  relation  to  others.  About  259 
Gallienus  granted  to  the  bishops  the  right  to  recover  the 
cemeteries,  which  had  been  seized  in  the  recent  persecu- 
tions, and  which  had  therefore  been  registered  in  the  name 
of  the  bishops  a  considerable  time  previously.  This  being 
the  case,  the  community  would  be  unable  to  recover  such 
property  by  ordinary  legal  process  from  the  bishop,  if  he 
were  deposed  or  changed  ;  for  it  could  not  appear  before 
a  court  except  through  its  bishop.*  Permanence  in  the 
discharge  of  episcopal  duties  was  usual  long  before  130; 
but  the  new  character  of  the  bishop  must  have  greatly 
strengthened  his  official  character.  If  the  impression  I  have 
as  to  the  numbers  and  power  of  the  Christians  in  Asia  Minor 
is  correct,  the  property  of  the  communities  must  have  been 
considerable.  Doubts  were  sure  to  arise  as  to  boundaries 
and  other  points  ;  and  in  such  cases  the  community  must 
either  submit  to  external  claims,  or  appear  by  its  bishop 
before  a  tribunal.  The  bishop  thus  became  the  regulator 
of  the  property  of  the  community.     Similarly  in  modern 

•  For  example,  in  A.D.  270,  when  Paul  of  Samosata,  Bishop  of 
Antioch,  was  deposed,  he  retained  the  church  building  and  property 
until  the  whole  church  appealed  to  Aurelian  against  him  (Eusebius, 
H.  E.,  vii.,  30). 


432        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Efnpire. 

Turkey,  a  religious  community  can  have  a  legal  position 
only  as  represented  by  an  individual  head  ;  but,  if  it  thus 
legalises  itself,  the  head  has  ex  officio  a  seat  on  the  district 
council.* 

Such  associations  were  commonly  for  sepulchral  pur- 
poses, and  cemeteries  were  the  most  widely  spread  form  of 
property.     Bequests  of  such  property  are  well  known.f 

With  Hadrian  a  new  period  begins  in  the  Church.  Not 
merely  did  Apology  arise,  as  an  immediate  consequence 
of  his  wiser  policy.  The  Church  as  a  body  responded  to 
his  action,  and  a  marked  distinction  in  its  policy  and  its 
utterances  appears  to  have  taken  place  about  130.  The 
uncompromising  spirit  of  Ignatius  did  not  long  survive 
him. J  That  amount  of  concession  to  the  State,  which  was 
implied  in  pleading  before  the  Imperial  tribunal  or  the  bar 
of  public  opinion,  probably  became  universal  soon  after  his 
time.  But  there  was  much  disagreement  as  to  the  extent 
to  which  concession  should  go  ;  and  the  disagreement 
increased  as  time  went  on.     It  is  quite  impossible,  owing 

*  In  this  way  the  pastor  of  a  small  Armenian  community  in 
Csesareia  of  Cappadocia  is  a  member  of  the  Mejliss  of  that  im- 
portant city,  and  has  at  least  once,  by  his  solitary  resistance, 
prevented  an  arbitrary  act  of  the  Pasha.  My  authority  is  Dr. 
Farnsworth,  whose  mission  is  not  connected  in  any  way  with  this 
Protestant  community. 

t  One  of  the  most  curious  is  published  by  me  in  Revue  des  Etudes 
Grecques,  1889,  p.  24,  where  we  must  read  in  A  (as  Mommsen 
writes)  nri^xiiav)  8eKa  eVi  Sexa,  and  in  B  8»ce[X]\a[Ta]  8vo  and  d[ya>y6']v 

X  From  this  point  of  view  we  must  date  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas 
before  the  era  of  the  charge — i.e.,  before  c.  130.  In  every  aspect 
that  I  can  appreciate,  it  belongs  to  the  age  100-120,  and  is  earlier 
even  than  Ignatius'  letters.  2  Peter  seems  to  belong  to  the  same 
period  as  Hermas :  I  cannot,  e.g.,  imagine  iii.  i,  2,  being  written 
at  an  early  period. 


XV I L    The  Church  fro7n  120  to  170  A.D.     433 

to  the  dearth  of  works  of  the  period,  to  say  when  the 
disagreement  began  to  be  apparent  ;  but  it  is  a  striking 
feature  of  Christian  documents  (except  the  purely  Apolo- 
getic) in  the  period  that  follows  A.D.  150.  In  the  Letter  of 
the  Smyrnaeans  about  the  death  of  Polycarp  in  155,  it 
is  strongly  marked,  and  evidently  is  a  question  that  has 
existed  for  some  time,  but  on  which  peaceable  discussion  is 
still  possible.  The  Acta  of  Carpus,  a  document  of  uncertain 
date,  but  probably  very  little  later,  shows  a  similar  state 
of  the  discussion,  in  which  it  takes  the  opposite  side. 

In  the  former  document,  as  Keim  has  rightly  observed, 
there  is  a  strong  though  veiled  protest  against  voluntarily 
offering  oneself  for  martyrdom.  The  Christian  should  wait 
till  he  is  arrested,  and  should  consider  the  safety  of  his  co- 
religionists. Keim  *  rightly  urges  that  such  a  protest  is 
not  in  keeping  with  the  earlier  tone  of  the  Church  ;  but  he 
wrongly  adduces  it  as  an  argument  that  the  document  is  a 
late  forgery.  In  this  protest  we  catch  the  new  tone  that 
grew  up  after  Hadrian's  time.  Hence  marked  blame  is 
cast  on  the  Phrygian,  Quintus,  who  voluntarily  gave  him- 
self up  ;  and  the  drawing  of  a  triumphant  moral  is  implied 
in  the  way  in  which  his  subsequent  weakness  is  described. 
On  the  other  hand,  Polycarp's  withdrawal  from  the  city 
is  described  as  arising,  not  from  cowardice,  but  from  the 
belief  that  it  was  the  right  course  ;  and  the  intention  to 
paint  Polycarp's  action  as  a  law  to  others  is  proved  by  the 
straining  after  analogies,  some  rather  far-fetched,  between 
his  death  and  that  of  Christ  (p.  374  ;  Lft.,  Ign.,  i.,  p.  610). 

In  Acta  Carpi,  especially  in  the   concluding  episode  of 

*  Aus  dent  Urchris  tent  hum,  p.  119.  In  his  reply  to  Keim 
Lightfoot  seems  to  me  not  to  show  his  usual  historical  insight  when 
he  inclines  to  dispute  the  fact,  i.,  p.  619. 

28 


434        '^^'■^  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Agathonike,  the  opposite  principle — viz.,  that  the  Christian 
ought  to  proclaim  openly  his  religion,  and  even  to  rush 
upon  martyrdom  * — is  insisted  on.  This  document  shows 
the  same  type  of  feeling,  though  not  so  developed,  as 
appears  in  Acta  Perpetucs^  in  which  Professor  Rendel 
Harris  has  rightly  recognised  the  controversial  character. 
But,  though  in  Acta  Carpi  the  tone  is  more  developed  than 
in  the  Smyrnasan  letter,  it  is  still  peacable,  and  free  from 
the  rancour  that  characterised  the  bitter  controversy  of  the 
years  after  170.!  In  that  period  Catholic  prisoners  would 
have  no  intercourse  with  Montanists,  and  in  Acta  Per- 
petuce  the  Montanist  Saturus  in  a  vision  saw  the  bishop  of 
his  church  shut  out  from  heaven.  Acta  Carpi  is  still  far 
from  that  extreme. 

The  bishops  were  the  chief  agents  in  carrying  out 
the  policy  of  conciliation  towards  the  State,  which  the 
Catholic  Church,  as  a  whole,  resolved  on,  but  which  a 
strong   party   in  it   considered  to   be   a   secularisation   of 

•  This  episode,  as  Hamack  well  shows,  wants  the  striking  in- 
dividualism shown  in  the  characters  of  Carpos  and  Papylos,  and  the 
incidents  seem  even  coloured  in  imitation  of  the  tale  of  Thekla. 
Where  he  preaches  most,  the  writer  is  more  remote  from  bare  narra- 
tive of  facts  (p.  399). 

t  The  chief  point  in  which  I  differ  from  Dr.  Hamack's  admirable 
edition  of -4  c/<2  Carpi  is  his  inference,  founded  on  a  comparison 
between  the  later  and  the  earlier  Acta,  that  it  is  impossible  to 
recover  from  late  Acta,  by  such  subjective  criticism  as  M.  Le  Blant 
has  used,  any  real  historical  facts.  The  inference  I  would  draw  is 
different.  In  the  late  Acta  Carpi  there  is  not  a  single  point  that 
would  be  quoted  as  indicative  of  real  foundation,  and  there  is  not  a 
trace  of  local  colour  ;  yet  we  now  find  that  this  miserable  legend  is 
only  a  distortion  of  fact.  This  case  seems  to  lend  strength  to  the 
argument  of  those  who  take  any  points  of  finer  character  in  these 
late  legends  as  survivals  of  real  history  on  which  the  legends  are 
founded. 


XVI L    The  Chu7'ch  from  120  to  lyo  A  D.    435 

religion,  and  an  unworthy  compromise*  \^'hile  the  Church, 
guided  by  the  bishops,  acted  on  a  skilful  and  well-con- 
sidered plan,  the  party  which  held  that  accommodation 
with  the  State  was  compromise  with  the  World  maintained 
that  this  plan  was  worldly  wisdom,  and  that  the  Church 
should  have  recourse  always  to  Divine  guidance,  as  accorded 
in  new  revelations  to  seers,  and  prophets,  and  martyrs. 

At  first  both  parties  continued  within  the  limits  of 
brotherhood  and  one  common  Church,  and  both  equally 
clung  to  the  idea  of  unity  and  solidarity  of  all  Christians, 
Both  episkopoi  and  prophets  therefore  characterised  the 
organisation  with  which  each  party  started  ;  but  naturally, 
as  bishops  guided  the  one  and  prophets  the  other,  each, 
in  the  progress  of  disagreement,  acquired  a  growing  dislike 
for  the  organisation  which  the  other  insisted  on. 

The  Church  in  Asia  Minor  seems  to  have  held  that 
Christians  should  live  in  society  as  far  as  possible,  should 
act  as  members  of  the  municipal  senates,  and  serve  as 
soldiers.f  But  in  Acta  Carpi  it  is  clear  that  the  official 
information  {elogiuin)  supplied  to  the  proconsul  specified 
Papylos  as  a  senator ;  yet,  when  the  question  was  put  to 
Papylos,  he  would  not  admit  the  fact,  but  replied,  "  I  am  a 
citizen."     Apparently  he  had  been  called  on  to  serve,  but 


•  In  this  critical  period  our  present  concern  is  merely  to  under- 
stand what  did  take  place,  and  not  to  apportion  praise  or  blame  to 
the  contending  parties. 

t  Numerous  examples,  especially  of  senators,  occur  in  the  Christian 
inscriptions  of  the  third  century.  See  my  papers  in  Expositor ,  1888-9, 
and  journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  1883.  When  Tertullian  says 
that  Pliny  degraded  some  Bithynian  Christians  from  their  rank,  he 
is  referring  to  senators  degraded  as  Dorymedon  was  at  Synnada 
(see  Le  Blant,  Actes,  p.  122);  but  his  remark  is  not  justified  by 
Pliny,  and  is  a  judgment  grounded  on  the  facts  of  his  own  time. 


43^        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

considered  the  duty  an  unworthy  one.  He  held,  with 
TertulHan  and  Origen,  that  Christians  ought  not  to  hold 
office,  nor  serve  in  the  army,  as  in  both  cases  it  was 
impossible  to  avoid  countenancing  heathen  rites.  But  the 
ordinary  Christians,  the  tradesmen  and  shopkeepers  and 
skilled  artisans,  who  had  to  face  the  practical  difficulties  of 
life,  while  TertulHan  taught  and  thought  and  wrote,  could 
not  act  on  this  principle ;  *  and  the  Church,  as  a  whole, 
justified  them,  and  held  that  they  ought  not  to  force  their 
religion  on  the  notice  of  others,  and  might  even  employ 
legal  forms  to  give  a  show  of  legality  to  their  position,  and 
help  inactive  or  well-disposed  officials  to  keep  their  eyes 
shut.  The  object  of  using  legal  forms  and  fictions  was  not 
concealment,  as  that  was  impossible  and  unnecessary,  when 
they  were  so  powerful  as  the  Church  was  in  Asia  Minor 
during  the  second  century.f  It  was  to  give  themselves  a 
legal  footing,  and  allow  all  who  had  no  active  animosity 
to  keep  up  the  fiction  about  them.  Thus,  even  while 
Christianity  was  held  a  capital  offence,  communities  ob- 
tained a  legal  position  as  Benefit  Societies. 

The  party  which  rejected  all  these  compromises  with  the 

•  Examples  of  soldiers,  stirred  by  religious  feeling  to  refuse  service, 
or  to  participate  in  heathen  rites,  occur  in  Acta  Maxirniliani,  Acta 
Marcelli  (Aug.  2^),  TertuUian  de  Cor.  Mil.,  i.  The  refusal  to 
perform  the  ordinary  duties  of  society  was  termed  by  the  State 
indolence  (see  above,  p.  274,  and  Le  Blant,  Actes,  p.  312). 

t  At  an  earlier  time  concealment  was  an  object ;  and  perhaps  a 
trace  of  this  remains  in  the  legend  of  Avircius  Marcellus.  At  the 
source  of  a  stream  among  the  mountains  between  Synnada  and 
Hieropolis  was  a  place  called  Gonyklisia — i.e.,  where  the  early  rite 
of  yovdrav  kKictis  was  held.  This  remote  place  was  clearly  a  secret 
meeting-place  ;  and  after  the  meetings  had  ceased,  and  the  archaic 
term  was  no  longer  understood,  a  foolish  legend  grew  up  to  explain 
the  name,  see  Expositor,  1889,  p.  262. 


XVII.    The  Church  from  120  to  170  A.D.    437 

State  gradually  took  form  as  Montanism.  Montanism  was 
in  many  respects  the  conservative  principle.  It  remained 
truer  to  the  old  forms.  It  maintained  the  order  of  prophets 
in  its  old  dignity :  it  did  not  admit  the  growing  dignity  of 
the  bishops.  It  claimed  that  it  preserved  the  character 
and  the  views  of  the  early  Church.  But  it  was  unconscious 
that  in  human  society  conservatism  is  an  impossibility. 
The  life  of  the  Church  lay  in  the  idea  of  unity  and  inter- 
communication ;  the  Catholic  Church  was  truer  to  this 
essential  idea,  and,  in  order  to  maintain  it,  was  ready  to 
sacrifice  some  of  the  older  forms.  Montanism  was  blind 
to  the  real  character  of  this  idea,  and  went  back  to  the 
early  thought  of  a  local  centre  for  the  unified  Church,  for 
which  it  was  as  zealous  as  the  Catholics.  It  made  a  New 
Jerusalem,  and  localised  it  in  two  little  villages  of  the 
Phrygian  highlands,  Pepouza  and  Tymion.*  In  opposition 
to  this  idea  of  a  local  centre,  the  Catholic  Church  maintained 
in  theory  that  its  centre  had  no  locality,  and  that  primacy 
in  the  Church  lay  in  the  most  perfect  realisation  of  the 
Christian  idea ;  but  in  practice  one  cannot  doubt  that  the 
thought  of  Rome  as  the  centre  in  fact,  though  not  in 
principle,  was  conceived  or  at  least  strengthened  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  Montanist  Jerusalem.  Hence,  when  Avircius 
Marcellus,  the  Catholic  champion  in  Phrygia  at  this 
period,  was  approaching  death,  and  wished  to  leave  behind 
him  in  his  epitaph  before  the  eyes  of  men  a  testimony 


•  Hamack,  almost  alone  among  modern  writers,  and  in  confessed 
opposition  to  the  views  of  the  later  Montanists,  considers  that  the 
earlier  Montanists  held  the  new  Phrygian  Jerusalem  to  be  the  proper 
home  of  all  Christians,  who  were  to  leave  their  own  houses,  and  to 
settle  there.  This  appears  to  me  to  misconceive  the  Montanist  idea, 
which  was  conservative. 


43 8        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

brief,  clear,  emphatic,  of  the  truth  for  which  he  had  during 
his  life  contended,  he  described  in  it  his  visit  to  Rome  and 
his  intercourse  with  the  Church  there,  and  his  visit  to  Syria 
with  all  its  cities  ;  but  the  only  Syrian  city  which  he  named 
was  not  Jerusalem,  but  Nisibis. 

Conservative  as  Montanism  desired  to  be,  it  could  not 
preserve  the  reality  of  the  form  that  it  prized  by  mere 
conservatism.      A   living    and    vigorous    organism    must 
develop,  and  Montanism  was  no   exception  to  this  rule. 
It   made    a   Phrygian    mountain   glen  the   centre  of  the 
Church ;    and,   as   a   necessary  consequence,  the   marked 
character  of  the  country  and  the  people  impressed  itself 
more  and  more  on  their  religion.     It  is  a  trite  subject,  on 
which    I    need    not   dwell,  how   many   traces   of  the   old 
enthusiastic  religion  of  Phrygia  are  to  be  found  in  Mon- 
tanism.     While,  therefore,  the  unity  and  brotherhood  of 
Christians  was  the  central  principle  of  Montanism,  as  of 
Catholicism,  it  was  in  the  nature  of  things  inevitable  that 
the  former  should  in  Asia  Minor  become  the  Church-ac- 
cording-to-the- Phrygians.     There  was  no  outside  influence 
to  counteract  the  natural  tendency  of  the  Phrygians  to 
Phrygianise  their  beliefs  ;  for  outside  influence  was  mainly 
Catholic,  and    Montanism  disliked   the  episcopal  channel 
through  which  intercommunication  was  maintained.     Thus 
it  happened  that  an   influential  position  was  accorded  to 
women  in  Phrygian  Montanism.     This  arose,  not  from  any 
essential  principle  of  Montanist  doctrine,  but  from  the  tone 
of  Asian  society.      Hence  it  was  not  a  characteristic  of 
Montanism  generally  ;  and  no  one  can  be  more  opposed  to 
it  as  a  feature  of  Church  government  than  the  Montanist 
Tertullian,     That  visions  were  granted  to  women  he  ad- 
mitted, but  beyond  this  he  would  not  go ;  and  it  is  clear 


XVII.    The  Church  from  130  to  170  A.D.    439 

that    the    Phrygian    Montanist   prophetesses,    Prisca    and 
Maximilla,  must  have  gone  far  further. 

The  subject  would  soon  carry  us  far  beyond  our  limits. 
We  must  not,  however,  pass  from  it  without  referring 
to  the  one  great  figure  on  the  Catholic  side  produced 
by  the  Phrygian  Church  during  this  period,  Avircius 
Marcellus,  born  about  A.D.  120-130.  We  are  fortunate  in 
possessing  two  accounts  of  his  life  and  action  ;  one  written 
by  himself,  in  his  seventy-second  year,  the  other  a 
legendary  biography,  composed,  probably,  about  A.D.  400. 
In  the  former  he  appears  as  an  upholder  of  what  he 
believed  to  be  the  truth,  in  a  controversy  that  took  place 
within  a  powerful  and  world-wide  church  ;  in  the  latter  he 
is  the  missionary  who  converted  a  heathen  land.  From 
the  latter  alone  it  would  be  impossible  to  discover  the  real 
character  and  position  of  Avircius  Marcellus  ;  and  yet  the 
original  document,  combined  with  the  information  given 
by  Eusebius,  shows  how  most  of  the  legendary  adventures 
originated.  It  would  be  most  instructive  in  regard  to  the 
nature  of  these  late  Acta  in  general,  and  also  in  regard  to 
the  difference  between  the  tone  of  the  Church  in  the  second 
century  and  A.D.  400,  to  study  in  detail  the  legendary 
biography.  But  such  a  study  would  be  premature  until 
a  MS.  of  the  Acta  in  the  National  Library  in  Paris  is 
published.*  An  important  MS.,  now  in  Jerusalem,  is  said 
by  Professor  Rendel  Harris  to  be  on  the  eve  of  publica- 
tion by  M.  Papadopoulos  Kerameus.  For  the  present  I 
need  only  refer  to  what  I  have  written  on  the  subject 
in  Expositor,  1889;  further  reflection  and  study  have 
confirmed  me  in  the  opinions  there  expressed.     In    par- 

•  No.  1540.  Rev.  H  Thurston,  S.  J.,  has  kindly  sent  me  some 
highly  interebting  passages  from  it. 


440        The  Church  tn  the  Roman  Empire. 

ticular,  the  name  Avircius  Marcellus  still  seems  to  me  to 
imply  Western  origin.  If  the  name  occurred  in  a  pagan 
inscription,  no  one  would  have  a  moment's  hesitation  in 
accepting  it  as  belonging  to  an  Italian  settler  in  Asia 
Minor,  one  of  the  numerous  Roman  traders  who  swarmed 
in  the  great  cities  of  the  provinces,  and  who  played  in 
ancient  times  a  part  similar  to  that  played  by  British 
commerce  in  spreading  national  influence  at  the  present 
day.  I  feel  obliged  to  interpret  the  names  of  Christians  on 
the  same  principles  as  those  of  pagans,  and  to  recognise 
Avircius  Marcellus  as  a  Roman  citizen  (the  prcBuomen 
being,  as  often,  omitted)  belonging  to  a  Western  family 
settled  in  Asia  Minor.* 

The  Catholic  champion's  fame  naturalised  the  name 
Avircius  in  Phrygia  in  its  Greek  forms,  ^AovlpKco<;,  ''A^lpKcof, 
^A^epKLo<i.  Examples  of  its  use  occur  as  late  as  the  tenth 
century,  when  it  was  borne  by  an  official  mentioned  in  the 
treatise  of  Constantine  Porphyrogenitus  de  Adm.  Imp.^  50. 
It  is  found  in  Phrygian  inscriptions  of  the  fourth  century  f 
(see  Expositor,  1889,  p.  395,  and  Lightfoot,  Ignatius,  i., 
p.  501).  One  of  these,  shown  in  the  accompanying  illus- 
tration, deserves  more  notice ;  it  is  the  epitaph  on  the 
gravestone  that  marked  the  tomb  of  Abirkios,  son  of 
Porphyrios,   a   deacon    at    Prymnessos.      His    name  is  a 

•  Aburcus  at  Falerii,  Deecke  Falisker,  p.  214  ;  Avircius  in  Rome, 
C.I.L.,  vi.,  12923-5  ;  Avercius  in  Gaul,  xii.,1052  ;  it  spread  to  Cappa- 
docia  as  Abourgios,  Basil,  Ep.,  ^i.  Ignatius  Theophorus  is  not 
Roman :  he  belonged  to  a  Syrian  family,  strongly  affected  by 
Western  civilisation,  which  had  discarded  native  names  and  used 
the  double  nomenclature,  Italian  and  Greek.  The  unusual  name 
Ignatius  has  some  historical  explanation. 

t  They  mark  the  period  when  Avircius  was  remembered  as  the 
old  Christian  hero,  and  the  legend  was  growing  in  Catholic  circles. 


■v//////^mm///m/m//M/////////m/////fMmmMm 


ABIPKIOC 
nOP^YPlOY 

AIAKUI  N<A 

TECKEYACA 

TO^MOPION 

EAYTWKAl"fl 

CYMBIUMoY 

eEvnPEniH 

KTOlC<^"EKN°il 


Early  Christian  Monument  from   Prymnessos.       [/>.  441. 


XVII.    The  Church  from  130  to  170  A.D.    441 

sufficient  proof  that  he  belonged  to  the  Catholic  Church, 
and  therefore  that  there  was  a  Catholic  Church  at  Prym- 
nessos,  in  the  anti-Catholic  part  of  Phrygia.* 

The  sculpture  on  the  gravestone  is  interesting,  as  giving 
one  of  the  earliest  known  representations  of  the  Saviour, 
who,  as  in  other  early  sculptures,  is  represented  as  a  youth- 
ful figure.  In  all  probability  a  Montanist  would  have 
regarded  the  representation  of  the  Saviour  as  idolatrous  ; 
but  the  Iconodoulic  tendency  was  already  beginning  in  the 
Orthodox  Church.  He  stands,  facing,  but  with  the  head 
turned  to  the  right,  with  the  thumb  and  two  fingers  of  the 
right  hand  extended.  The  attitude  is  that  of  admonition 
and  instruction.  The  figure  has  the  squat  proportions  that 
mark  the  declining  art  of  the  late  third  and  the  fourth 
century.  The  features  are  those  of  the  conventional  male 
youth  of  later  art,  insipid  but  retaining  the  Greek  type 
and  character.  The  artist  was  used  to  represent  the  face 
in  profile,  and  therefore  put  the  head  in  that  position, 
though  the  body  is  differently  placed. 

The  heads  of  Abirkios,  and  his  wife,  Theuprepia,  are 
shown  on  a  larger  scale,  one  on  each  side  of  the  central 
figure.  That  of  Abirkios  is  of  the  conventional,  expression- 
less type  ;  but  in  the  face  of  Theuprepia  there  appear 
individuality  and  beauty,  which  are  lost  in  the  reproduction. 
It  is  the  portrait  of  a  matron,  plump,  with  a  slight  tendency 
to  double  chin  ;  the  features  are  graceful,   dignified,   and 


•  An  inscription  of  Sinethandos  or  Laodiceia  Combusta,  probably 
of  the  end  of  the  fourth,  or  early  fifth,  century,  mentions  the  Church 
of  the  Novatians  there.  The  phrase  rutv  Navarajf  has  been  mis- 
understood in  the  Corpus,  No.  9,268,  and  treated  as  a  single  word 
even  by  M.  Waddington,  No.  1,699.  The  article  tSdv  has  been 
doubled  by  error  of  the  engraver. 


442        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

noble,  and  wear  the  placid  and  contented  expression  which 
indicates  comfortable  circumstances  and  a  happy  life.  I 
can  hardly  imagine  this  face  to  be  the  work  of  a  fourth- 
century  artist. 

The  official  title  deacon,  on  the  other  hand,  points  to 
the  period  when  the  Christian  religion  was  recognised  and 
legal  after  the  triumph  of  Constantine.  The  Catholic 
principle  seems  to  have  been  to  avoid  the  public  use 
of  official  terms  before  the  Church  was  explicitly  legalised. 
It  is,  however,  not  Impossible  that  we  have  here  an 
instance  of  the  title  being  used  even  earlier — e.g.^  in  the 
early  years  of  Diocletian's  reign,  when  he  was  favourably 
inclined  towards  the  Christians.*  The  use  of  memorion  to 
indicate  an  ordinary  grave  also,  perhaps,  points  to  a  third 
rather  than  a  fourth  century  date.  It  was  afterwards 
appropriated  to  the  holy  grave  and  shrine  of  a  martyr  or 
saint. 

We  notice  that,  as  in  almost  all  Asian  epitaphs,  the 
wife  precedes  the  children.  The  regular  order  in  Greek 
literature  was  to  mention  the  children  before  the  wife. 

Note. — A  document,  published  too  late  for  Lightfoot  to  use, 
gives  a  clue  to  the  proper  form  of  the  inscriptions  about  Philip  the 
Asiarch,  published  in  his  Ignat.,  u,  p.  629  f. :  the  words  perhaps 
are  [(cara  TO  rfjf  /3ouX^s  boyyiora,  avayv(t)(T6ev^T[a\  Kat.  €7rtKup[ci)^eV]Ta  viro 
rov  deiorarov  avTOKparopos  'AvTcoveivov,  k.t.\.  ',  or  possibly  [Kara  ra  vno 
T^y  ^ouX^s  yi/rj<pia-6ev]T[a.'\,  Koi  (7riKvp[oi6ev]Taf  k.t.X.  Bull,  Corr,  Hell,, 
1887,  p.  299. 

*  The  form  hiaKav  for  hiaKovoi  occurs  in  a  pagan  inscription 
giving  a  list  of  the  officials  of  a  temple  at  Metropolis  in  Ionia, 
and  therefore  not  later  than  the  end  of  the  third  century:  Mous, 
Smyrn.f  iii.,  p.  93. 


CHAPTER   XVIIl*  : 

GLYCERIUS    THE  DEACON. 

WE  have  now  treated  in  brief  outline  the  position  of 
the  Church  in  the  Empire  during  the  period  when 
its  organisation  was  in  process  of  formation.  By  the  time 
which  we  have  reached  (170-180  A.D.),  all  the  elements  of 
the  consolidated  Church  had  assumed  the  form  and  the 
mutual  relations  which  on  the  whole  characterise  its  subse- 
quent development. 

From  this  date  onwards  the  subject  which  has  occupied 
our  attention  becomes  more  complicated,  far  more  evidence 
bearing  upon  it  is  accessible,  and  it  is  hardly  susceptible  of 
treatment  as  a  whole.  The  development  of  the  Catholic 
Church  was  indeed  an  element  of  unity  over  the  whole 
Empire  ;  but  in  each  province  the  situation  of  the  unified 
and  universal  Church  varied.  The  elements  within  the 
pale  of  Christianity  which  opposed  the  tende^ncies  of  the 
universal  Church  varied  in  each  province ;  the  character 
of  the  people,  the  type  of  their  religious  feeling  and  atti- 
tude, the  relation  in  which  they  stood  towards  the  Roman 
Government  and  society,  differed  widely  in  different  lands. 
In  the  history  of  each  province  this  subject  should  occupy 

•  This  chapter,  published  in  great  part  in  ExJ>ostior,  1891,  was 
originally  a  lecture  delivered  in  Cambridge  at  the  invitation  of 
Dr.  Westcott  in  1889.  Traces  of  the  original  form  remain  on 
pp.  448,  450. 

443 


444        "^^^  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire, 

some  place — even  a  prominent  place  ;  *  and  until  the  local 
varieties  are  better  understood  and  more  clearly  described 
than  has  hitherto  been  the  case,  it  will  be  impossible  to 
attain  a  trustworthy  conception  of  the  position  of  the 
Church  within  the  Empire,  between  the  point  which  we 
have  reached  and  the  final  triumph  of  the  new  religion. 

To  come  to  the  particular  case  of  the  country  with  which 
I  am  most  familiar,  we  want  to  catch  the  Cappadocian 
Christian  of  the  fourth  century,  the  Phrygian  Christian  of 
the  second  and  third  centuries,  and  to  acquire  some  con- 
ception of  his  character,  his  ways,  and  his  thoughts,  and 
of  how  he  got  on  with  his  non-Christian  neighbours.  In 
studying  this  subject,  one  is  led  to  the  opinion  that  a 
distinction  in  social  type  must  be  drawn  among  the 
Christians.  In  the  period  following  A.D,  130  the  history 
of  Christianity  in  Asia  Minor,  when  treated  as  a  branch 
of  the  history  of  society,  is  a  long  conflict  between  two 
opposing  tendencies,  leading  to  the  formation  of  sects 
or  churches.  From  the  theological  point  of  view,  these 
provincial  churches  belong  to  various  classes,  and  are 
called  by  many  names  ;  but  they  have  all  certain  common 
features, — they  tended  towards  separatism  and  diversity, 
in  opposition  to  the  unity  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and 
they  arrived  at  this  diversity  through  no  intentional  re- 
jection of  the  unity  of  all  Christians,  but  through  the 
gradual  and  unmarked  development  of  native  character- 
istics in  what  they  considered  to  be  the  true  and  original 
form  of  their  common  religion. 

•  In  Mommsen's  Provinces  of  the  Roman  Empire  it  did  not 
enter  into  his  plan,  and  the  social  conditions  of  each  province 
are  described  almost  as  if  there  had  been  no  Christians  in  it,  or,  at 
least,  as  if  they  exerted  no  influence  on  it. 


XVIII.    Glycerins  the  Deacon.  445 

The  history  of  the  Catholic  Church  varied  greatly  in 
different  districts  of  Asia  IMinor.  In  some  it  never  touched 
the  popular  heart,  and  was  barely  maintained  by  external 
influence  ;  in  others  it  achieved  a  complete  victoiy  over 
the  forces  that  tended  to  cause  disintegration  ;  and  in  some 
cases  only  a  faint  echo  of  any  conflict  has  reached  us.  My 
position  is,  that  there  was,  in  every  case  throughout  Asia 
Minor  where  any  evidence  is  known,  such  a  conflict  ;  that 
the  first  Christians  of  the  country  were  not  organised  in  a 
strict  fashion,  but  were  looser  communities,  in  which  per- 
sonal influence  counted  for  much  and  official  station  for 
little  ;  and  that  the  strict  discipline  of  the  Catholic  Church 
was  gradually  framed  to  counteract  the  disintegrating 
tendency,  in  a  political  and  a  religious  view  alike,  of  the 
provincial  character,  organised  the  whole  Church  in  a  strict 
hierarchy  of  territorial  character,  parallel  to  the  civil  organi- 
sation, and  enabled  the  Church  to  hold  together  the  Roman 
Empire  more  firmly  than  the  worship  of  the  Emperors 
could  ever  do.  Politically  the  Church  was  originally  a 
protest  against  over-centralisation  and  against  the  usur- 
pation by  the  Imperial  Government  of  the  rights  of  the 
individual  citizen.  It  ended  by  being  more  centralised  than 
the  Empire  itself;  and  the  Christian  Empire  destroyed  all 
the  municipal  freedom  and  self-government  that  had  existed 
under  the  earlier  Empire. 

We  should  be  glad  if  we  could  answer  the  question  why 
some  districts  of  Asia  Minor  resisted  the  Catholic  Church 
so  persistently,  and  others  followed  it  so  readily  ;  why,  for 
example,  if  I  may  use  the  question-begging  terms,  Cappa- 
docia  was  orthodox  and  Phrygia  heretical  ? 

The  answer  seems  obvious  in  the  case  of  Cappadocia. 
The  group  of  great  Church  leaders,  Basil,  Amphilochius, 


446        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Evipire. 


and  the  three  Gregories  (for  I  think  Gregory,  the  Bishop 
of  Nazianzos,  may  fairly  be  mentioned  along  with  his  far 
more  famous  son), — this  group  of  leaders  carried  the 
countiy  with  them.  But  this  answer  only  puts  the  difficulty 
one  step  back.  Can  any  reason  be  suggested  why  the  great 
Cappadocian  leaders  followed  the  Roman  Church,  whereas 
almost  all  the  most  striking  figures  in  Phrygian  ecclesiastical 
history  opposed  it  ? 

Partly,  no  doubt,  the  reason  was  geographical  or  racial — 
i.e.,  it  depended  on  the  character  produced  in  the  inhabit- 
ants by  the  situation,  the  atmosphere,  the  scenery,  and  the 
past  history  of  the  two  districts  respectively;  but  partly  it 
was  due  to  influences  acting  at  the  time  on  the  general 
population  and  on  the  leaders  of  thought  in  each  country. 
These  influences  are  an  interesting  study.  In  Phiygia  the 
evidence  is  almost  entirely  archaeological,  for  no  historian 
does  more  than  make  an  occasional  passing  allusion  to  the 
country ;  but  in  Cappadocia  much  light  is  thrown  on  the 
subject  by  the  biographies  and  writings  of  a  series  of  great 
historical  figures ;  and  a  study  of  these  documents  in 
their  relations  to  the  archaeological  evidence  is  the  first 
preliminary  in  carrying  out  the  purpose  that  has  just  been 
indicated.  This  book  cannot  be  better  concluded  than  by 
a  few  specimens  of  the  work  that  remains  to  be  done  for 
the  later  history  of  Christianity  in  the  country  with  which 
we  have  been  chiefly  concerned. 

The  history  of  Basil  of  Caesareia,  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  and 
the  distinguished  family  to  which  they  belonged,  is  closely 
connected  with  the  city  of  Ibora  in  Pontus.  A  glance  at 
the  biography  of  the  various  members  of  the  family  shows 
that  a  number  of  questions  with  regard  to  the  circum 
stances  of  their  life,  and  the  exact  meaning  to  be  placed 


XVIII.    Glycerins  the  Deacon.  ^^'j 

on  the  language  of  many  of  their  letters  and  the  incidents 
they  describe,  depend  on  the  locality  and  surroundings. 
But  the  name  Ibora  was  long  floating  in  air,  and  had 
not  set  foot  on  the  ground  ;  and  for  all  reasoning  that 
depends  on  local  circumstances,  on  the  relation  of  city 
with  city,  district  with  district,  and  civil  governors  or 
bishops  with  each  other,  it  would  have  been  as  useful  to 
say  that  Basil's  family  owned  an  estate  beside  Cloud- 
Cuckoo-Town,  as  to  say  that  they  were  landed  proprietors 
near  Ibora.  But,  if  any  one  were  to  attempt  the  task  of 
reconstructing  a  picture  of  the  society  in  which  Basil,  the 
Gregories,  and  Amphilochius  moved,  and  of  their  relations 
with  it,  the  state  of  education  in  the  country,  and  the 
attitude  which  young  graduates  of  the  University  of  Athens 
assumed  to  the  home-trained  Cappadocians  or  Pontians — 
an  historian  of  that  class,  if  such  a  one  should  arise,  would 
find  many  investigations  stopped,  unless  he  could  attain 
certainty  as  to  the  situations  in  which  the  events  were 
transacted.  The  operations  of  the  English  Asia  Minor 
Exploration  Fund  have  now  cleared  away  much  of  the 
uncertainty  that  hung  over  the  localities  in  which  the  great 
events  of  Cappadocian  religious  history  took  place,  and 
have  made  it  possible  to  face  fairly  the  problem  of  describ- 
ing the  circumstances  of  that  critical  period,  350-400,  when 
the  character  of  the  Cappadocian  Church  was  determined. 
Here  is  a  period  about  which  a  great  body  of  evidence 
remains,  in  the  writings  of  the  principal  agents  on  the 
victorious  side.  The  account  of  their  opponents,  of  course, 
has  to  be  accepted  with  caution  ;  but  in  weighing  it  we 
can,  at  least,  always  have  the  certainty  that  they  are  not 
too  lenient  in  their  judgment,  or  flattering  in  their  descrip- 
tion, of  the  opposite  party. 


448        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

In  the  year  370,  Basil  was  appointed  bishop  of  Caesareia, 
metropolitan  of  Cappadocia,  and  exarch  or  patriarch  of  the 
Pontic  dicBcesis.  He  was  appointed  in  spite  of  the  resist- 
ance of  the  majority  of  his  bishops,  in  spite  of  the  dislike 
and  dread  of  many  of  the  people,  in  spite  of  the  open 
opposition  of  the  Government.  He  was  elected  by  the 
strenuous  exertions  of  a  few  influential  individuals  ;  and 
the  authority  of  the  Church  outside  the  province  was 
needed  in  order  to  put  down  the  disaffected  within  it. 
The  cause  of  the  Catholic  Church  was  involved  in  his 
election  :  without  the  hand  of  a  vigorous  organiser  there 
was  extreme  danger  that  "  heresy  "—  Eunomianism,  Arian- 
ism,  and  so  on — would  triumph  in  Cappadocia.  We  want 
to  learn  what  this  means  to  the  student  of  society.  Did 
the  Eunomian  differ  from  the  Catholic  only  in  certain 
points  of  doctrine,  being  otherwise  undistinguishable  from 
him?  or  do  these  words  indicate  a  difference  in  private 
life,  in  political  feeling,  and  in  Church  organisation  ?  The 
question  may  be  answered  fully,  when  the  historian  is 
found  who  will  face  the  problem  as  it  has  just  been 
sketched.*  I  can  only  express  the  hope  that  in  this 
university  something  may  be  done  to  solve  it.  The  later 
Greek  and  Latin  writers  are  full  of  material,  uncollected 
and  unvalued,  for  the  history  of  society.  Why  should 
almost  all  the  natural  ability  and  admirable  training  of  the 
classical  scholars  of  Cambridge  be  directed  towards  such 
a  narrow  range  of  authors  ?  Every  one  who  has  toiled 
through  a  Byzantine  historian  in  the  edition  of  the  Berlin 
Academy — that  dauernde  Schande  der  deutschen  Philologie 


•  The  following  sentences  are  left  in  the  same  form  as  they  had 
in  the  lecture  addressed  to  a  Cambridge  society.    So  also  on  p.  450 


XVIII .    Glycerius  the  Deacon.  449 

— compelled,  as  he  does  so,  slowly  and  without  critical 
material,  to  remake  his  edition  for  his  own  use,  and  has 
then  run  joyously  through  De  Boor's  admirable  Theo- 
phanes — every  one  who  has  done  that  knows  what  need 
there  is  for  the  wider  employment  of  learning  and  skill. 
Why  should  traditional  belief — or,  shall  I  say,  traditional 
ignorance? — exclude  all  Christian  Fathers  or  Byzantine 
historians  from  the  classical  scholar's  interests,  and  almost 
confine  him  to  producing  the  43rd  edition  of  one  out  of 
about  a  score  of  writers  ?  When  he  has  something  to  say 
about  Homer  or  Cicero  that  he  must  say,  then  let  him  say 
it ;  but  might  not  some  of  the  good  scholarship  of  this 
university  be  more  profitably  employed  ?  I  am  not  un- 
grateful for  the  large  amount  of  help  that  I  have  had  from 
Cambridge  scholarship,  but  what  I  have  had  only  makes 
me  wish  for  more. 

I  shall  try  to  give  an  example  of  the  importance  and  the 
human  interest  of  this  subject,  by  examining  one  single 
episode  in  Cappadocian  history,  about  A.D.  371-374,  aiid 
showing  what  light  is  thrown  by  it  on  the  character  of 
the  Cappadocian  Christians  at  the  time.  The  incident  is 
related  by  Archdeacon  Farrar  in  his  Lives  of  the  Fathers 
as  follows.  His  account  agrees  in  all  essential  points 
with  that  given  by  Canon  Venables  in  the  Dictionary  of 
Christian  Biography,  with  Tillemont,  and  with  the  Migne 
biography,  and  may  fairly  be  taken  as  representing  the 
usual  interpretation. 

"  The  extraordinary  story  of  the  deacon  Glycerius  illus- 
trates the  aberrations  due  to  the  fermenting  enthusiasm  and 
speculative  curiosity  which  marked  the  Eastern  Church,  and 
which  were  fostered  by  the  dreamy  idleness  of  innumerable 
monks,     Glycerius  was  a  young  man  whose  early  vigour 

29 


450        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Basil  viewed  with  so  much  favour,  that  he  had  ordained 
him  deacon  of  the  church  of  Venesa  (?)  *  about  372.  Puffed 
up  by  his  ordination,  the  young  deacon  proceeded  to  gather 
round  him  a  band  of  devoted  young  ladies,  whose  admira- 
tion he  won  by  sleek  and  soft  religious  arts,  and  who 
supported  him  by  their  offerings.  Severely  reproved  by  his 
presbyter,  his  chorepiscopus,  and  lastly  by  Basil,  Glycerius 
left  the  town  by  night  with  a  band  of  these  girls  and  some 
youths,  and  scandalised  the  country  by  wandering  about 
with  them  in  a  disorderly  manner,  dancing  and  singing 
hymns,  amid  the  jeers  of  the  coarse  rustics.  When  their 
fathers  came  to  rescue  the  girls  Glycerius  ignominiously 
drove  them  away.  Finally,  the  whole  band  took  refuge 
with  a  bishop  named  Gregory,  whom  even  the  Benedictine 
editor  is  inclined  to  think  may  have  been  Gregory  of  Nyssa. 
Basil  treated  the  vain,  mischievous,  and  deluded  deacon 
with  much  fatherly  forbearance,  and  promised  to  deal  with 
him  kindly  if  he  would  dismiss  the  votaries  he  was  leading, 
not  to  God,  but  to  the  abyss.  Strange  to  say,  the 
bishop,  whoever  he  was,  either  failed  to  second  Basil's 
efforts,  or  only  did  so  in  a  lukewarm  and  inadequate 
way." 

Let  me  now  read  to  you  the  letters  from  which  all  our 
knowledge  has  to  be  gathered.  I  hope  that,  through  my 
bald  translation  something  of  the  fire  and  vigour  of  the 
original  may  appear.  Few  writers  can  compare  with  Basil 
in  directness  ;  not  a  word  can  be  spared  without  a  distinct 
loss  of  effect.  He  does  indeed  use  Xva  with  conjunctive 
in  a  way  to  make  a  classical  scholar's  hair  stand  on  end ; 
but,  if  the  classical  scholar  disdains  the  usage,  so  much 

•  The  interrogation  is  left  as  in  the  original. 


XVIII.    Glycerins  the  Deacon.  451 

the  worse  for  him.*  It  is  true  that  the  usage  does  not 
occur  in  Demosthenes,  but  it  is  stamped  by  a  greater  than 
that  man  of  words,  the  man  least  capable  of  understanding 
his  time  of  all  that  have  ever  figured  in  history  as  states- 
men, unless  Cicero  be  taken  into  account 

I.  Basil  to  Gregory  (Ep.  clxix.  [ccccxii.]). 

"  Thou  hast  taken  a  reasonable  and  kindly  and  compas- 
sionate course  in  showing  hospitality  to  the  captives  of  the 
mutineer  Glyccrius  (I  assume  the  epithet  for  the  moment) 
and  in  veiling  our  common  disgrace  so  far  as  possible. 
But  when  thy  discretion  has  learned  the  facts  with  regard 
to  him,  it  is  becoming  that  thou  shouldst  put  an  end  to  the 
scandal.  This  Glycerius  who  now  parades  among  you  with 
such  respectability  was  consecrated  by  ourselves  as  deacon 
of  the  Church  of  Venasa,  to  be  a  minister  to  the  presbyter 
there  and  to  attend  to  the  work  of  the  church  ;  for  though 
he  is  in  other  respects  unmanageable,  yet  he  is  clever 
in  doing  whatever  comes  to  his  hand.  But  when  he  was 
appointed,  he  neglected  the  work  as  completely  as  if  it  had 
never  existed.  Gathering  together  a  number  of  poor  girls, 
on  his  own  authority  and  respon.sibility,  some  of  them 
flocking  voluntarily  round  him  (for  you  know  the  flightiness 

*  There  is  too  great  proneness  to  stamp  one  period  of  Latin,  one 
period  of  one  dialect  of  Greek,  as  correct,  and  everything  that  differs 
as  wrong.  But  the  real  cause  of  the  inferiority  of  style  in  later  pagan 
writers  lies,  not  in  the  words,  but  in  the  want  of  life  and  spirit  in  the 
men.  The  question  has  yet  to  be  asked  and  answered,  how  far  the 
language  used  by  Basil  is  less  fit  to  express  clearly  and  vigorously  his 
meaning  than  that  used  by  Demosthenes,  and,  if  so,  what  are  the  real 
reasons  for  the  inferiority  ?  Those  who  have  read  least  of  such  authors 
as  Basil  are  most  ready  to  condemn  their  style. 


452         The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

of  young  people  in  such  matters),  and  some  of  them  unwill- 
ing, he  set  about  making  himself  the  leader  of  a  company ; 
and  taking  to  himself  the  name  and  the  garb  of  a  patriarch, 
he  of  a  sudden  paraded  as  a  great  power,  not  reaching  this 
position  by  a  course  of  obedience  and  piety,  but  making  it 
a  livelihood,  as  one  might  take  up  any  trade  ;  and  he  has 
almost  upturned  the  whole  Church,  disregarding  his  own 
presbyter,  and  disregarding  the  village-bishop  and  ourselves 
too,  as  of  no  account,  and  ever  filling  the  civil  polity  and 
the  clerical  estate  with  riot  and  disorder.  And  at  last, 
when  a  slight  reproof  was  given  by  ourselves  and  by  the 
village-bishop,  with  the  intent  that  he  should  cease  his 
mutinous  conduct  (for  he  was  exciting  young  men  to  the 
same  courses),  he  conceives  a  thing  very  audacious  and 
unnatural.  Impiously  carrying  off  as  many  young  women 
as  he  could,  he  runs  away  under  the  cover  of  night.  This 
must  seem  to  thee  quite  horrible. 

"  Think  too  what  the  occasion  was.  The  festival  of  Venasa 
was  being  celebrated,  and  as  usual  a  vast  crowd  was  flock- 
ing thither  from  all  quarters.  He  led  forth  his  chorus, 
marshalled  by  young  men  and  circling  in  the  dance,  making 
the  pious  cast  down  their  eyes,  and  rousing  the  ridicule  of 
the  ribald  and  loose-tongued.  Nor  is  this  all,  serious  as  it 
is  ;  but  further,  as  I  am  informed,  when  the  parents  could 
not  endure  to  be  orphaned  of  their  children,  and  wished  to 
bring  them  home  from  the  dispersion,  and  came  as  weeping 
suppliants  to  their  own  daughters,  he  insults  and  scandalises 
them,  this  admirable  young  fellow  with  his  piratical 
discipline. 

"  This  ought  to  appear  intolerable  to  thy  discretion,  for  it 
brings  us  all  into  ridicule.  The  best  thing  is  that  thou 
shouldest  order  him  to  return  with  the  young  women,  for  he 


XVIII.    Glycerins  the  Deacoju  453 

would  meet  with  allowance  if  he  comes  with  letters  from 
thee.  If  that  be  impossible,  the  young  women,  at  any  rate, 
thou  shalt  send  back  to  their  mother  the  Church,  Or,  in 
the  third  place,  do  not  allow  them  that  are  willing  to  return 
to  be  kept  under  compulsion,  but  persuade  them  to  come 
back  to  us. 

"  Othei-wise  we  testify  to  thee,  as  we  do  to  God  and  men, 
that  this  is  a  wrong  thing,  and  against  the  rules  of  the 
Church.  If  Glycerius  return  with  a  spirit  of  wisdom  and 
orderliness,  that  were  best ;  but  if  not,  he  must  be  removed 
from  the  ministiy." 

II.  Basil  to  Glycerius  (Ep.  clxx.  [ccccxiv.]). 

"  How  far  wilt  thou  carry  thy  madness,  working  evil  for 
thyself  and  disturbance  for  us,  and  outraging  the  common 
order  of  monks  ?  Return  then,  trusting  in  God  and  in  us, 
who  imitate  the  compassion  of  God.  For,  though  like  a 
father  we  have  chidden  thee,  yet  we  will  pardon  thee  like 
a  father.  Such  are  our  words  to  thee,  inasmuch  as  many 
supplicate  for  thee,  and  before  all  thy  presbyter,  whose 
gray  hairs  and  kindly  spirit  we  respect.  But  if  thou  con- 
tinuest  to  absent  thyself  from  us,  thou  art  altogether  cast 
out  from  thy  station  ;  and  thou  shalt  be  cast  out  from  God 
with  thy  songs  and  thy  raiment,  by  which  thou  leadest 
the  young  women,  not  towards  God,  but  into  the  pit." 

These  two  letters  were  obviously  written  at  the  same 
time,  and  sent  by  the  same  messenger  ;  the  third  was 
written  after  an  interval,  and  apparently  after  receipt  of  a 
letter  from  Gregory  asking  for  assurance  of  full  pardon 
for  Glycerius, 


454        ^^  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire, 

III.  Basil  to  Gregory  (Ep.  clxxi.  [ccccxiii.]). 

"  I  WROTE  to  thee  already  before  this  about  Glycerius 
and  the  maidens.  Yet  they  have  never  to  this  day  returned, 
but  are  still  delaying  ;  nor  do  I  know  why  and  how,  for  I 
should  not  charge  thee  with  doing  this  in  order  to  cause 
slander  against  us,  either  being  thyself  annoyed  with  us  or 
doing  a  favour  to  others.*  Let  them  come  then  without 
fear ;  be  thou  guarantee  on  this  point.  For  we  are 
afflicted  when  the  members  of  the  Church  are  cut  off,  even 
though  they  be  deservedly  cut  off".  But,  if  they  should 
resist,  the  responsibility  must  rest  on  others,  and  we  wash 
our  hands  of  it." 

For  the  right  understanding  of  this  incident  the  only 
evidence  available  is  contained  in  (i)  these  three  letters  of 
Basil  ;  (2)  a  sentence  of  Strabo  (p.  537),  describing  the 
village  and  district  of  Venasa ;  (3)  an  inscription  found  in 
1882  on  a  hill-top  near  the  village  ;  (4)  the  map  of  Cappa- 
docia  as  now  reconstructed.  A  first  glance  at  the  evidence 
is  enough  to  reveal  various  details  inconsistent  with  the 
accepted  account ;  and  we  may  be  sure  that  Basil  has  not 
coloured  in  favour  of  Glycerius  those  details  that  give  a 
different  complexion  to  the  incident. 

In  the  first  place,  the  very  evident  sympathy  of  Gregory 
for  Glycerius  disquiets  all  the  modern  interpreters ;  his 
sympathy  cannot  be  due  to  ignorance  of  the  facts  of  the 
case,  for  he  was  far  closer  to  the  spot  than  Basil  himself, 
and  the  acts  were  not  hid  under  a  bushel,  but  done  openly, 

*  The  reference  is  to  Basil's  numerous  enemies,  who  would  be 
delighted  that  the  Bishop  of  Nazianzos  should  refuse  to  comply  with 
his  wishes. 


XVIII.    Glycerins  the  Deacon.  455 

and  no  doubt  widely  talked  about.  The  only  explanation 
that  can  be  devised  by  the  interpreters  is  to  deny  part  of 
the  evidence.  The  MS.  evidence,  so  far  as  quoted  in  the 
Migne  edition,  is  that  two  of  the  letters  are  addressed  to 
Gregory  of  Nazianzos.  Most  of  the  interpreters  say  that 
Gregory  of  Nyssa  must  be  meant,  and  that  Gregory  of 
Nyssa  was  guilty  of  many  weak  and  foolish  acts.  The 
answer  lies  in  the  map,  which  confirms  the  old  authority, 
and  disproves  the  modern  suggestion.* 

In  the  next  place,  the  presbyter,  whom  Basil  represents 
as  having  been  disregarded  and  set  at  nought,  is  in  favour 
of  the  offender,  and  beseeches  Basil  to  act  kindly  to  him. 
Canon  Venables  indeed  says  that  the  presbyter  "  gravely 
admonished"  Glycerius;  but  this  misrepresents  the  evidence. 
The  "  village-bishop  "  and  Basil  himself  censured  Glycerius  ; 
but  though  Basil  says  Glycerius  showed  disrespect  to  the 
presbyter,  he  drops  no  hint  that  the  presbyter  complained 
about  this,  but  rather  implies  the  opposite.  Basil  himself 
does  not  even  hint  at  any  darker  crime  than  injudiciousness 
and  ambition  in  the  relations  of  Glycerius  to  the  devotees ; 
and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  letters  omit  no  charge 
that  could  be  brought  against  the  rebellious  deacon.  The 
evident  purity  of  conduct  in  this  strange  band  may  fairly 
be  taken  as  necessarily  implying  that  the  strictest  religious 

•  If  any  change  is  permitted  in  the  MS.  authority,  I  should 
understand  the  elder  Gregory,  Bishop  of  Nazianzos,  and  date  the 
letters  a.d.  2,']2^.  The  Gregory  to  whom  these  letters  were  addressed 
■was  obviously  not  under  Basil's  authority,  and  was  therefore  under 
Tyana ;  but  Nyssa  was  under  Ca^sareia,  subject  directly  to  Basil, 
as  Venasa  also  was.  The  tone  of  the  letters  also  is  more  respectful 
and  less  peremptory  than  Basil  would  probably  have  employed  to 
his  brother,  or  even  to  his  friend  Gregory.  On  the  map,  see 
Historical  Geography  of  Asia  Minor,  p.  293. 


456        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

obligations  were  observed  by  the  devotees.  In  such  a 
difficult  situation  there  is  no  alternative  but  either  strict 
asceticism,  springing  from  fanatical  or  enthusiastic  religious 
feeling,  or  license  and  scandal. 

Now  the  evident  sympathy  both  of  the  immediate 
superior,  the  presbyter,  whose  influence  had  been  appa- 
rently diminished  by  the  popularity  of  the  deacon,  and  of 
the  Bishop  of  Nazianzos  (whether  the  older  Gregory  or  his 
son,  who  filled  his  place  for  a  short  time  after  his  death 
in  374),  is  quite  unintelligible  if  Glycerius  had  introduced 
some  new  and  startling  features  into  the  religion  of  the 
province.  It  is,  of  course,  certain  that  the  principles  of  both 
the  Gregories,  father  and  son,  were  opposed  to  such  mani- 
festations, as  being  contrary  to  the  whole  spirit  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  The  reason  why  Gregory  sympathised 
must  be  that  Glycerius  was  only  keeping  up  the  customary 
ceremonial  of  a  great  religious  meeting.  Canon  Venables 
indeed  says  that  the  band  "  wandered  about  the  country 
under  the  pretence  of  religion,  singing  hymns  and  leaping 
and  dancing  in  a  disorderly  fashion,"  and  Archdeacon 
Farrar  agrees  with  him.  But  there  is  no  warrant  in  the 
letter  of  Basil  for  this  account.  The  band  is  not  said 
either  to  wander  about  the  country  or  to  dance  in  a  dis- 
orderly way.  Accurate  geography  is  useful  in  studying 
these  writers,  but  accurate  translation  is  not  without  its 
advantages.  Let  us  scrutinise  the  facts  a  little  more  closely, 
examining  the  situation  and  the  probabilities  of  the  case  ; 
and  I  think  we  shall  have  to  admit  that  Basil  is  giving  us 
a  picture,  coloured  to  his  view,  of  a  na'ive  and  quaint 
ceremony  of  early  Cappadocian  Christianity,  which  he 
regarded  with  horror,  and  was  resolved  to  stamp  out. 

One  of  the  most  striking  features  in  the  whole  incident 


XVIII.    Glycerins  the  Deacon.  457 

is  the  important  part  played  by  women.  Now  this  is  the 
most  striking  feature  also  in  the  native  religion  and  society 
of  Asia  Minor.     (See  pp.  161,  398.) 

The  occasion  when  the  most  extreme  features  of  this 
Cappadocian  "  heresy "  were  displayed  was  the  great 
festival  at  Venasa,  when  a  vast  concourse  was  gathered 
there.  This  festival  is  called  by  Canon  Venables  a  "  fair  "  ; 
but  this  is  not  an  accurate  translation.  The  synodos,  which 
was  held  there,  was  certainly  similar  to  the  Armenian 
synodos^  held  at  Phargamous.  At  Phargamous,  in  the 
month  of  June,  a  great  festival  was  held  in  honour  of 
certain  martyrs  ;  and  such  dignitaries  as  Basil  himself, 
Eusebius  of  Samosata,  and  Theodotus  of  Nicopolis,  might 
be  expected  at  it. 

Moreover,  the  synodos  of  Venasa  was  one  of  the  most 
ancient  and  famous  religious  meetings  in  Cappadocia. 
The  priest  of  Zeus  at  Venasa  was  second  in  dignity  and 
power  only  to  the  priest  of  Komana ;  he  held  office  for 
life,  and  was  practically  a  king.  A  village  inhabited  by 
3,000  hierodouloi  was  attached  to  the  temple,  and  round  it 
lay  a  sacred  domain  that  brought  in  an  annual  income  of 
fifteen  talents  (nearly  ;i^4,ooo).  Christianity  directed  the 
religious  feeling  of  the  country  towards  new  objects,  but 
preserved  the  old  seasons  and  methods.  A  Christian 
festival  was  substituted  for  the  old  festival  of  Zeus,  doubt- 
less the  occasion  when  the  god  made  his  annual  e'^oSo?,  or 
procession  round  his  country.  Basil,  unluckily,  pitiless  of 
the  modern  scholar,  does  not  name  the  month  when  the 
festival  took  place,  and  the  sole  memorials  of  it  that  remain 
to  complete  the  account  of  Strabo  are,  first,  a  brief  invoca- 
tion to  the  heavenly  Zeus,  found  on  a  hill-top,  to  guide  us 
(along  with  other  evidence)  to  the  situation  (see  p.   142)  ; 


458        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

and,  secondly,  these   letters   of  Basil,    to   show   how   the 
Cappadocian  Christians  developed  the  pagan  festival. 

At  this  great  religious  ceremony  of  the  whole  country, 
Glycerins  brought  forth  his  followers,  singing  and  dancing 
in  chorus.  Such  ceremonies  were  necessarily  a  part  of  the 
old  religious  festival  of  Zeus,  and  their  existence  in  it, 
though  not  attested,  may  be  safely  assumed  ;  accordingly 
there  is  every  probability  that  they  were  not  novelties 
introduced  by  Glycerius,  but  were  part  of  the  regular 
Cappadocian  custom.  They  are  a  natural  and  regular 
concomitant  of  the  earlier  and  simpler  forms  of  religion, 
whether  Pagan  or  Jewish  ;  and  at  Venasa  they  were  re- 
tained, with  some  modifications  in  the  words  and  the 
gestures.  Hymns  undoubtedly  were  substituted  for  the 
pagan  formulae,  and  not  a  hint  is  dropped  by  Basil  that 
the  dancing  and  singing  were  not  of  a  quiet  and  modest 
character.  The  license  of  the  old  pagan  ceremonies  had 
been  given  up ;  but  in  many  respects  there  was  no  doubt  a 
striking  resemblance  between  the  old  pagan  and  the  new 
Christian  festival.  Probably  the  dancing  of  the  great 
dervish  establishments  of  Kara  Hissar  and  Iconium  at  the 
present  day  would  give  the  best  idea  of  the  festival  at 
Venasa  in  the  time  of  Basil,  though  the  solemnity  and 
iconoclastic  spirit  of  Mohammedanism  have  still  further 
toned  down  the  ecstasy  and  enthusiastic  abandon  of  the  old 
ritual.  But  the  strange,  weird  music  of  the  flute  and 
cymbals,  and  the  excited  yet  always  orderly  dancing,  make 
the  ceremony  even  yet  the  most  entrancing  and  intoxicating 
that  I  have  ever  witnessed.  Through  this  analogy  we  can 
come  to  realise  the  power  that  might  be  acquired  by  a 
man  of  natural  ability  and  religious  fervour  over  numbers 
of  young  persons.     This  influence  was  increased  by  the 


XVIII.    Glycerins  the  Deacofi.  459 

character  which  Glycerius  assumed  and  the  robes  which  he 
wore.  In  the  old  pagan  festival  the  leader  of  the  festival 
wore  the  dress  and  bore  the  name  of  the  deity  whom  he 
represented.  The  custom  is  well  known  both  in  Greece 
(where  the  Dionysos  festival  is  the  most  familiar,  but  far 
from  the  sole,  example)  and  in  Asia  Minor.*  Glycerius, 
as  Basil  tells  us,  assumed  the  name  and  the  dress  of  a 
"  patriarch."  The  meaning  of  this  seems  to  be  that  the 
director  of  ceremonies  (who,  like  the  modern  dervish  sheikh, 
never  danced  himself)  was  equipped  in  a  style  corresponding 
to  the  pagan  priest,  and  assumed  the  character  of  the  highest 
religious  official,  the  patriarch. 

But  a  new  era  began  in  Cappadocia  when  Basil  became 
head  of  the  Church.  It  is  obvious  that  abuses  might 
readily,  almost  necessarily,  creep  into  such  ceremonies ; 
and  clearly  the  edict  went  forth  that  they  must  cease. 
Basil  does  not  say  that  any  real  abuses  had  occurred.  He 
speaks  only  of  the  downcast  looks  of  the  pious  spectators, 
and  the  jests  of  the  ribald  and  loose-tongued  ;  but  he  is 
clearly  describing  what  he  conceives  to  be  the  inevitable 
outcome  of  such  ceremonies.  The  spirit  of  the  Church, 
whose  champion  Basil  was,  was  inexorably  opposed  to  such 
exhibitions.  For  good  or  for  evil,  such  prominence  given 
to  women  in  religious  ceremonial  was  hateful  to  it.  The 
influence  acquired  by  a  deacon,  his  assumption  of  the  robes 
and  name  of  a  patriarch,  were  subversive  of  the  strict 
discipline  of  the  Roman  Church.  The  open  association 
of  a  monk  with  a  band  of  young  women  was  contrary  to 
the  rules  of  the  monastic  order.  The  village-bishop, 
acting  doubtless  on  previous  general  orders  of  his  superior, 

•  £.g.,  at  Pessinus  the  priest  took  ex  officio  the  name  Attis. 


460        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

reprimanded  Glycerius,  and  his  action  was  confirmed  and 
enforced  by  Basil.  Glycerius,  when  thus  treated,  took 
advantage  of  the  recent  changes  which  had  curtailed  the 
power  of  Basil.  He  crossed  the  frontier  into  the  adjoining 
bishopric  of  Nazianzos,  which  was  now  included  in  the 
province  of  Second  Cappadocia,  under  the  metropolitan  of 
Tyana.  The  young  women  that  followed  his  ministrations 
fled  with  him  ;  and,  as  Gregory  received  and  sheltered  them 
all,  we  cannot  doubt  that  the  flight  was  made  in  an  orderly 
way,  without  scandal,  and  with  the  air  of  pious  but  per- 
secuted Christians.  Basil  then  complained  to  Gregory  in 
the  letter  quoted.  The  reply  of  Gregory  unfortunately 
has  not  been  preserved  ;  but  we  can  imagine  that  he  gave 
a  different  version  of  the  case,  stated  his  views  as  to  the 
character  of  Glycerius,  and  urged  Basil  to  promise  complete 
forgiveness  on  condition  of  the  immediate  return  of  all  the 
fugitives. 

We  have  the  reply  of  Basil,  giving  the  required  assurance, 
though  not  with  the  best  grace.  One  motive  that  evidently 
weighed  with  him  was  apprehension  of  the  talk  that  he 
would  give  rise  to,  if  he  persisted  in  an  intolerant  policy. 
Now  all  this  is  inconceivable  except  on  the  supposition 
that,  according  to  the  above  description,  Glycerius  was 
acting  in  accordance  with  established  custom  and  the 
general  feeling  of  the  Cappadocian  Church,  while  Basil 
was  too  hastily  and  sternly  suppressing  the  custom  of  the 
country.  The  incipient  schism,  roused  by  the  sternness  of 
Basil,  was  healed  by  the  mild  mediation  of  Gregory. 

The  fault  in  Glycerius  which  most  offended  Basil  was 
evidently  his  transgression  of  the  Church  discipline.  The 
full  significance  of  this  can  be  grasped  only  in  its  connection 
with  the  whole  policy  of  Basil. 


XVIII.    Glycerins  the  Deacon.  461 

The  powerful  personality,  the  intense,  uncompromising 
zeal,  and  the  great  practical  ability  of  Basil  were  of  the 
first  consequence  in  insuring  the  triumph  of  the  Catholic 
Church  in  Cappadocia.  But  one  man,  however  powerful, 
cannot  do  everything  by  his  own  immediate  effort,  especially 
when  his  personal  influence  is  interrupted  by  a  too  early . 
death,  as  Basil's  was.  The  organising  power  which  has 
always  been  so  conspicuous  a  feature  of  the  Church,  ex- 
ercised as  powerful  an  influence  in  Cappadocia  as  elsewhere. 
The  organisation  which  Basil  left  behind  him  completed 
his  work.  One  great  object  of  Basil's  administration  was 
to  establish  large  ecclesiastical  centres  of  two  kinds :  first, 
orphanages,  and,  secondly,  monasteries.  An  orphanage 
was  built  in  every  district  of  his  immense  diocese  ;  the  one 
at  Cassareia,  with  its  church,  bishop's  palace,  and  residences 
for  clergy,  hospices  for  poor,  sick,  and  travellers,  hospitals 
for  lepers,  and  workshops  for  teaching  and  practising 
trades,  was  so  large  as  to  be  called  the  "  New  City."  Such 
establishments  constituted  centres  from  which  the  irresistible 
influence  of  the  Church  permeated  the  whole  district,  as, 
centuries  before,  the  cities  founded  by  the  Greek  kings 
had  been  centres  from  which  the  Greek  influence  had 
slowly  penetrated  the  country  round.  The  monks  and  the 
monasteries,  which  Basil  established  widely  over  the  country, 
were  centres  of  the  same  influence  ;  and  though  the  monks 
occasionally  caused  some  trouble  by  finding  even  Basil 
himself  not  sufficiently  orthodox,  they  were  effective  agents 
of  the  Catholic  Church,  whereas  the  solitary  hermits  and 
anchorets,  whom  Basil  rather  discouraged,  though  he  had 
been  one  himself,  were  perhaps  more  favourable  to  the  pro- 
vincial Church,  and  were  certainly  a  far  less  powerful 
engine  for  affecting  the  country. 


462        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 


That  the  monk  Glycerius  should  break  through  the 
gradations  of  office  and  the  spirit  of  the  Church,  should 
parade  in  the  robes  of  the  patriarch,  and  flee  from  his 
superior's  jurisdiction  in  the  company  of  a  band  of  women, 
was  a  thing  intolerable  to  Basil. 

One  other  point  requires  notice  :  is  any  external  cir- 
cumstance known  that  is  likely  to  have  directed  such  men 
as  Basil  and  Gregory  away  from  the  line  of  native  develop- 
ment in  religion  ?  A  strong  impulse  probably  was  given 
them  by  their  foreign  education.  They  lost  the  narrow, 
provincial  tone  ;  they  came  to  appreciate  the  unity  and 
majesty  of  the  Roman  Empire  ;  they  realised  the  destiny  of 
the  Church  to  be  the  unifying  religion  of  the  Empire — 
i.e.^  of  the  civilised  world.  They  also  learned  something 
about  that  organisation  by  which  Rome  ruled  the  world, 
and  they  appreciated  the  fact  that  the  Church  could  fulfil 
its  destiny  and  rule  the  Roman  Empire  only  by  strict 
organisation  and  rigid  discipline.  Men  like  Glycerius 
could  not  see  beyond  the  bounds  of  their  native  district 
with  its  provincial  peculiarities;  men  like  Basil  were  perhaps 
intolerant  of  mere  provincialism. 

Perhaps  a  clearer  idea  of  the  causes  which  made  Cappa- 
docia  orthodox  may  be  gained  by  looking  at  Phrygia,  which 
was  mainly  a  heretical  country.  The  cities  of  the  Lycus 
valley,  and  of  the  country  immediately  east  and  north-east 
of  it,  which  were  most  under  the  Roman  influence,  were 
of  the  dominant  Christian  Church  ;  but  the  mass  of  the 
countiy  adhered  stubbornly  to  the  native  forms  of  Chris- 
tianity. Probably  this  has  something  to  do  with  the  fact 
that  in  Phrygia  so  few  Christian  communities  have  main- 
tained an  unbroken  existence  through  the  Turkish  domina- 
tion, whereas  in  Cappadocia  a  fair  proportion  of  the  whole 


XVIII.    Glycerins  the  Deacon.  463 

population  has  preserved  its  religion  to  the  present  day. 
Many  of  the  Phrygians  were  always  discontented  with  the 
Byzantine  rule,  except  under  the  Inconoclast  emperors. 
When  John  Comnenus  was  invading  the  Seljuk  dominions, 
he  found  Christian  communities,  who  so  much  preferred 
Turkish  rule  to  Byzantine,  that  they  fought  against  him, 
even  without  support  from  the  Turks,  and  had  to  be 
reduced  by  force  of  arms.  To  a  certain  extent  this  was 
perhaps  due  to  their  preferring  the  easy  Seljuk  yoke  to 
the  heavy  Byzantine  taxation  ;  but  it  is  very  probable  that 
religious  difference  was  the  chief  cause. 

How  far  then  can  we  trace  in  Phrygia  the  presence  or 
absence  of  the  causes  that  made  Cappadocia  orthodox? 
Little  or  no  trace  of  such  organisation  as  Basil  made  in 
Cappadocia  can  be  found  in  Phrygia.  In  the  life  of 
Hypatius  written  by  his  disciple  Callinicus,  and  corrected 
by  another  hand  in  the  time  of  his  third  successor,  we  read 
that  he  was  born  in  Phrygia,  but  was  obliged  to  emigrate 
to  Thrace  in  order  to  gratify  his  wish  to  live  in  a  church  or 
monastery  where  he  might  associate  with  discreet  men  ; 
"  for  there  were  then  no  such  persons,  except  isolated  indi- 
viduals, in  Phrygia,  and  if  a  church  existed  anywhere,  the 
clergy  were  rustic  and  ignorant,  though  the  country  has 
since  become  almost  entirely  Christian  "  {i.e.,  orthodox). 

Hypatius  flourished  in  the  first  half  of  the  fifth  century  ; 
so  that  the  apparent  reform  here  described  belongs  to  the 
period  450-500.*     The   organisation    of   Phrygia    on   the 

*  The  revision  of  the  biography  as  composed  by  CalHnicus  is  said 
expressly  to  have  extended  only  to  a  correction  of  the  bad  Greek  of  a 
Syrian  dialect.  The  reviser  neither  added  nor  took  away  anything, 
though  he  knew  various  things  that  might  be  added  {^Acta  SancL, 
June  17th,  p.  308). 


464        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

orthodox  model  therefore  is  much  later  than  that  of 
Cappadocia,  and  it  was  probably  not  so  thorough.  It 
seems  to  have  been  only  superficial,  caused  by  the  Govern- 
ment imposing  on  the  countiy  the  forms  of  the  Catholic 
Church* 

Note. — The  "New  City"  of  Basil,  p.  461,  seems  to  have  caused 
the  gradual  concentration  of  the  entire  population  of  Cassareia 
round  the  ecclesiastical  centre,  and  the  abandonment  of  the  old 
city.  Modern  Kaisari  is  situated  between  one  and  two  miles  from 
the  site  of  the  Graeco- Roman  city.  Here  we  have  a  type  of  a  series 
of  cases,  in  which  population  moved  from  the  older  centre  to  cluster 
round  an  ecclesiastical  foundation  at  a  little  distance ;  and  this 
cause  should  be  added  to  those  which  are  enumerated  in  Hist. 
Geogr.,  ch.  viii.,  "Change  of  Site." 

•  In  writing  to  Gregory,  Basil  had  to  give  details ;  and  from 
these  we  learn  the  real  character  of  Glycerius's  action.  But,  if  we 
had  only  some  brief  reference  to  him,  made  by  Basil  in  writing  to  a 
sympathetic  foreign  friend,  we  can  imagine  that  it  would  have  been 
prejudiced  and  unfair.  The  letter  of  Firmilian,  Bishop  of  Csesareia, 
to  Cyprian  (Ep.  75)  is  a  document  of  the  latter  class  ;  and  we  cannot 
take  his  description  of  the  unnamed  Cappadocian  prophetess  as 
fully  trustworthy.  The  general  facts  are  true ;  but  the  colour  is 
prejudiced.  One  detail  has  been  recently  confirmed  by  Mr.  Hogarth  : 
he  has  found  an  inscription  stating  that  Serenianus  (mentioned  by 
Firmilian  as  presses  temporibus  post  Alexandrunt)  was  governor 
of  Cappadocia  under  Maximin,  Alexander's  successor. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE  MIRACLE  AT  KHONAI. 

IN  Asia  Minor  the  result  of  the  contest  between  the 
unifying  principle  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  the 
tendency  towards  varieties  corresponding  to  national  cha- 
racter, was  that  the  former  succeeded  in  establishing  itself 
as  the  ruling  power.  But  it  could  not  entirely  extirpate 
the  development  of  varieties.  The  national  idiosyncracies 
were  too  strongly  marked,  and  these  Oriental  peoples  would 
not  accept  the  centralised  and  organised  Church  in  its 
purity,  but  continued  the  old  struggle  of  Asiatic  against 
European  feeling,  which  has  always  marked  the  course 
of  history  in  Asia  Minor,  The  national  temper,  denied 
expression  in  open  and  legitimate  form,  worked  itself  out 
in  another  way — viz.,  in  popular  superstitions  and  local 
cults,  which  were  added  as  an  excrescence  to  the  forms  of 
the  Orthodox  Church.  A  growing  carelessness  as  to  these 
additions,  provided  that  the  orthodox  forms  were  strictly 
complied  with,  manifested  itself  in  the  Church.  The  local 
cults  grew  rapidly  in  strength  ;  and  finally  the  Ortho- 
dox Church  in  Asia  Minor  acquiesced  in  a  sort  of  com- 
promise between  local  variety  and  Catholic  unity,  which 
showed  much  analogy  with  its  old  enemy,  the  State  religion 
of  the  Roman  Empire.  The  latter,  so  far  as  it  had  any 
reality,  was,  as  we  have  seen,  founded  on  the  principle 
(which  was  indeed  never  fully  developed,  but  which  is 
quite  apparent  underneath  most  of  the  fantastic  varieties 

46s  30 


466        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire, 

of  the  Imperial  cultus)  that  the  incarnate  God  in  human 
form  who  ruled  the  State  was  in  each  district  identified 
with  the  deity  special  to  the  district.  The  Orthodox 
Church  acquiesced  in  the  continuance  of  the  old  local 
impersonations  of  the  Divine  power  in  a  Christianised 
form.  The  giant-slaying  Athena  of  Seleuceia  is  dimly 
recognisable  beneath  the  figure  of  Saint  Thekla  of 
Seleuceia  ;  the  old  Virgin  Artemis  of  the  Lakes  became 
the  Virgin  Mother  of  the  Lakes,  whose  shrine  amid  a 
purely  Turkish  population  is  still  an  object  of  pilgrimage 
to  the  scattered  Christians  of  southern  Asia  Minor ;  the 
god  of  Colossae  was  represented  as  Michael.  In  one  case 
(unique,  so  far  as  my  knowledge  extends)  we  find  in 
A.D.  1255  even  the  Christ  of  Smyrna,  Hist.  Geogr.,  p.  116. 

The  tendency  to  localise  the  Divine  power  and  to  find  a 
special  manifestation  of  the  Divine  nature  in  certain  spots 
can  nowhere  be  better  studied  than  in  Asia  Minor.  A 
succession  of  conquering  races  has  swept  over  the  land, 
coming  from  every  quarter  of  the  compass,  by  land  and  by 
sea,  and  belonging  to  diverse  branches  of  the  human  family. 
Time  after  time  the  language,  the  government,  the  society, 
the  manners,  the  religion  of  the  country  have  been  changed. 
Amid  all  changes  one  thing  alone  has  remained  permanent 
and  unchanging — the  localities  to  which  religion  attaches 
itself  In  the  same  place  religious  worship  continues 
always  to  be  offered  to  the  Divine  power :  the  ritual 
changes,  and  the  character  attributed  to  the  Divine  Being 
varies,  according  to  the  character  of  the  race,  but  the 
locality  remains  constant.  The  divinity  is  more  really 
present,  more  able  to  hear  or  to  help,  in  certain  spots  than 
he  is  elsewhere ;  he  assumes  a  distinct  and  individualised 
character  in  these  spots,  and  takes  on  himself  something  of 


XIX.    The  Miracle  of  KJionai.  467 

humanity,  becoming  more  personal  and  more  easily  con- 
ceived and  real  to  the  ordinary  mind.  After  a  time  this 
law  was  accepted  by  the  Orthodox  Church,  and  became 
a  strong  determining  force  in  its  future  development. 
The  country  was  divided  and  apportioned  to  various  saints, 
who  were  not  merely  respected  and  venerated,  but  adored 
as  the  bearers  and  embodiments  of  the  Divine  power  in 
their  special  district.  We  would  gladly  know  more  about 
the  attitude  in  which  the  later  heresies  of  Byzantine  history, 
the  Iconoclastic  movement,  Paulicianism,  etc.,  stood  towards 
this  tendency  of  the  Orthodox  Church. 

But  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  above  all  these 
local  differences  there  was  a  rather  empty,  but  still  very 
powerful,  idea  of  unity.  So  strong  was  this  idea  that  it  alone 
has  held  together  that  which  is  now  called  the  Greek 
race.  The  Greeks  of  to-day  have  no  common  blood. 
They  include  Cappadocians,  Isaurians,  Pisidians,  Albanians, 
as  well  as  Greeks  by  race.  They  have  little  common  cha- 
racter ;  they  are  divided  by  diversity  of  language.  They 
are  united  by  nothing  except  the  forms  of  the  Orthodox 
Church ;  but  in  spite  of  a  low  standard  of  education  in  its 
priests  and  no  very  high  standard  of  morality  in  its 
teaching,  these  have  been  strong  enough  to  maintain  the 
idea  of  a  united  people.  For  old  Rome  as  its  centre  was 
substituted  the  new  Rome  of  Constantine.  The  political 
changes  of  the  present  century  have  even  destroyed  to 
appearance  the  unity  of  the  Church  ;  but  still  the  idea 
remains,  and  every  Greek  looks  forward  to  a  future  unity 
of  the  Church  and  its  adherents,  with  free  Constantinople 
as  its  metropolis. 

To  understand  the  character  of  this  later  development 
of   Christianity  in  Asia  Minor,  it  is   best  to  study  it  in 


468        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

individual  cases,  and  we  shall  find  a  typical  instance  in  the 
narrative  of  the  miracle  wrought  at  Khonai  by  the  arch- 
angel Michael.  Our  authority  is  a  document,  which,  in  its 
existing  form,  is  a  very  late  fabrication,  probably  not 
earlier  than  the  ninth  century.  It  shows  a  strange  mixture 
of  knowledge  and  ignorance  of  the  localities,  and,  while 
purporting  to  be  strongly  individualised  in  its  account  of 
persons,  it  is  a  tissue  of  general  platitudes  and  marvels 
applied  to  individual  names.  The  author  was  perhaps  a 
monk  of  the  ninth  century.  I  shall  speak  of  him  as  the 
redactor.  He  was  not  uneducated,  but  his  knowledge  was 
very  inexact  and  of  a  low  order.  He  was  in  some  way 
acquainted  with  a  tale  current  at  Khonai,  the  town  which 
succeeded  the  older  Colossas,  with  regard  to  an  apparition  of 
Michael  there.  This  tale  was  the  foundation  legend  {lGpo<i 
X.6yo(;)  of  one  of  the  most  famous  churches  of  Asia  Minor, 
the  church  of  St.  Michael  of  Khonai. 

The  redactor  confused  this  apparition  of  Michael  with 
another,  which  he  found  in  the  Menologia.  It  is  there 
mentioned  on  the  6th  day  of  September  that  Michael  of 
Khonai  was  manifested  at  Khairetopa  or  Keretapa.  The 
redactor  concluded  that  the  apparition  at  Keretapa  was  the 
apparition  at  Khonai,  and  that  Keretapa  was  the  name  of 
the  exact  spot  beside  Khonai  where  the  apparition  had  oc- 
curred.   Thus  he  made  out  the  extant  version  of  the  legend. 

He  also  knew  that  Khonai  was  situated  in  the  Lycus 
valley,  not  far  from  Laodiceia  and  Hierapolis  ;  and,  wrongly 
supposing  Keretapa  to  be  a  spot  in  the  territory  of  Khonai, 
he  fancied  that  the  Lycus  flowed  towards  Lycia.  The  real 
Keretapa  is  not  far  from  the  watershed  of  the  Indos  valley. 
About  six  miles  west  of  Keretapa  one  reaches  the  extreme 
waters  of  the  Indos,  which  flows  towards  Lycia. 


XIX.    The  Miracle  of  KJionai.  469 

Having  thus  arranged  the  locaHtics  for  his  tale,  he  begins 
from  the  apostle  of  Hierapolis,  Philip,  and  as  a  suitable 
introduction  works  in  the  Apostle  John  and  the  Echidna, 
taking  his  facts  from  a  different  set  of  documents,  examples 
of  which  are  preserved*  From  Hierapolis  the  two  apostles 
went  to  Khairetopa,  and,  after  working  wonders  there  and 
predicting  the  apparition  of  Michael,  they  proceeded  to 
other  cities.  Then  there  gushed  forth  a  healing  spring  at 
Khairetopa.  Long  before  the  church  was  built,  a  small 
chapel  t  existed  on  the  spot.  It  was  the  work  of  a  pagan, 
a  native  of  Laodiceia,  who  became  a  convert  after  his  dumb 
daughter  was  cured  and  made  to  speak  by  the  miraculous 
fountain.  The  father  and  daughter  are  introduced  for  this 
one  purpose,  and  remain  nameless.  Ninety  years  later  the 
first  guardian  (Trpocr/ioi/apio?)  of  the  holy  fountain  came  to  it. 
His  name  was  Archippos,  and  he  was  a  child  of  ten  years 
old,  born  of  pious  parents  in  Hierapolis.  The  name  comes 
from  Coloss.  iv.  17,  cp.  13.J  Archippos,  a  hermit  of  the 
strictest  austerity,  guarded  the  sanctuary  for  sixty  years ; 
and  it  required  a  series  of  miracles  to  preserve  it  from  the 
attacks  of  the  heathen,  though  during  the  ninety  years  pre- 
ceding his  arrival  it  needed  no  guardian.  The  heathen 
natives  were  determined  to  pollute  the  sacred  fountain,  or 
Ayasma,§  by  turning  into  it  the  water  of  some  other 
stream.  They  first  tried  to  mix  the  river  Chryses  with  the 
Ayasma,  but  it  parted  into  two  branches,  flowing  right  and 
left  of  the  sacred  water. 

•  Lipsius,  Apokryphal  Apostelgeschichte,  ii.,  2,  24. 

■f  fiiKTrfpiov,  dvaiaaTrjpiov. 

X  According  to  Batiflfol,  S^ud.  Patrist.,  i.,  ■^t^,  this  is  perhaps  a 
genuine  tradition  about  the  true  Archippos. 

§  iyiaafia :  so  also  at  Lystra  (p.  50)  and  Tyraandos,  Jlisi.  Geogr.f 
p.  402. 


470        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

After  this  five  thousand  heathen  collected  at  Laodiceia, 
and  resolved  to  overwhelm  the  Ayasma  with  the  united 
waters  of  the  Lykokapros  and  the  Kouphos.  These  rivers 
flow  about  three  miles  distant  from  the  Ayasma,  and  after 
uniting  beside  the  great  mountain  flow  away  into  the 
country  of  Lycia.  To  ensure  that  the  rivers  should  be 
full,  the  five  thousand  began  by  damming  them  up  for  ten 
days.  But  when  they  opened  the  dams  and  let  the  waters 
run  into  the  new  channel  which  they  had  cut  to  divert  the 
rivers  into  the  Ayasma,  Michael  himself  came  down  to 
defend  the  holy  fountain.  He  stood  upon  a  rock  beside 
the  sanctuary,  and,  after  bidding  the  waters  stand  still 
until  they  were  as  deep  as  the  height  of  ten  men,  he 
caused  the  rock  to  open,  and  leave  a  path  for  the  united 
streams  to  flow  through.  And  the  rock  split  open  with  a 
noise  like  thunder  and  a  shock  as  of  an  earthquake  ;  and 
the  waters  flow  through  the  cleft  to  the  present  day. 

There  is  a  curious  mixture  of  knowledge  and  ignorance, 
of  local  accuracy  and  inaccuracy,  in  this  legend.  The 
name  Lykokapros  is  a  mixture  of  the  two  rivers  Lykos 
and  Kapros,  which  bounded  the  territory  of  Laodiceia  on 
the  north  and  west.*  The  Kouphos  also  may  be  a  real 
river,  perhaps  one  of  those  which  flow  from  Mount  Cadmos 
northwards  into  the  Lycus.  The  great  mountain  of  course 
is  Cadmos,  which  rises  from  the  valley  6,000  feet  over 
Colossae,  and  7,000  above  the  sea  ;  it  is  called  the  great 
mountain  to  distinguish  it  from  the  low  ridge  which  im- 


•  Just  as  one  of  the  western  Xwpot  of  Laodiceia  was  called 
Eleinokaprios  from  the  two  rivers  Eleinos  and  Kapros,  so  the  north- 
western Xa>pos,  beside  the  junction  of  Lykos  and  Kapros,  may  have 
been  called  Lykokaprios,  and  thus  have  misled  the  author  into  the 
idea  that  there  was  a  river  Lykokapros. 


XIX.    Tlie  Miracle  of  Kkonai,  471 

pedes  the  exit  of  the  Lycus  from  the  valley.  That  the 
Lycus  ever  flowed  to  Lycia  is  of  course  absurd  ;  but  the 
legend  had  to  explain  what  happened  to  the  river  before 
its  new  course  was  opened  for  it  by  the  archangel. 
Whether  from  some  vague  idea  that  Khairetopa  was  near 
a  stream  that  flowed  to  Lycia,  or  from  the  mere  pseudo- 
etymological  fancy  that  the  names  Lycus  and  Lycia  were 
connected,  the  explanation  suggested  itself  that  the  Lycus 
originally  flowed  away  towards  Lycia.  Whether  this  de- 
tail was  added  by  the  redactor  or  belonged  to  the  older 
local  legend,  no  evidence  remains. 

The  name  Chryses  is  perhaps  a  relic  of  an  older  form 
of  the  legend  distinguished  by  better  local  knowledge. 
Names  of  this  form  are  not  uncommon  in  Asia  Minor ; 
and  it  is  quite  probable  that  some  branch  of  the  Lycus 
beside  Colossae  was  called  Chryses.  The  sacred  stream  at 
Hierapolis  is  called  on  coins  the  Chrysorrhoas,  so  that 
a  name  of  the  same  stock,  at  any  rate,  occurred  in  the 
Lycus  valley.  It  is  remarkable  that  two  branches  issuing 
from  the  same  source  flow  on  the  right  and  the  left  of  the 
sacred  spring  at  the  present  day,  as  may  be  seen  on  the 
map.     The  northern  one  is  artificial,  but  ancient.* 

Legends  of  this  kind  may  originate  in  three  ways : 
(l)  Some  are  mere  inventions  to  explain  a  name.f     In  this 

•  In  Maspero's  Recueil  de  Travaux,  xiv.,  1891,  Hogarth  and 
I  have  described  the  irrigation  works  at  Heracleia-Cybistra,  which 
are  probably  very  ancient. 

■)•  One  case  bears  on  our  subject.  The  name  KfpeVajra  was  some- 
times misspelt  Kaip«Va7ra  and  XaipfTarra ;  a  legend  arose  of  the 
apparition  of  Michael,  saying  Xalpt,  Toire,  and  this  has  found  its 
way  into  some  MSS.  of  the  Miracle  at  Khonai.  A  different  legend 
connected  with  Keretapa  and  St.  Artemon  exists,  see  Expositor, 
1889,  i.,  p.  150. 


472        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

way  a  tale  might  be  made  to  explain  the  name  Khonai, 
"funnels"  as  derived  from  a  channel  or  funnel  through 
which  a  neighbouring  river  flows,  (2)  In  many  cases  old 
legends,  told  originally  of  some  pagan  deity,  were  trans- 
ferred to  a  Christian  saint.  (3)  Some  legends  were  founded 
on  historical  facts,  which  occurred  in  Christian  times. 
The  last  class  is  far  the  most  interesting  ;  and  it  is  possible 
that  the  miracle  at  Khonai  belongs  to  it 

Colossae  was  situated  at  the  lower  western  end  of  a 
narrow  glen  some  ten  miles  long.  On  the  north  and  east 
the  broken  skirts  of  the  great  central  plateau  hem  in  the 
glen.  On  the  south  Mount  Cadmos  rises  steep  above  it. 
On  the  west  a  low  rocky  ridge  about  two  miles  in  breadth 
divides  it  from  the  lower  Lycus  valley.  This  glen  forms 
a  sort  of  step  between  the  lower  Lycus  valley,  which  is  an 
eastern  continuation  of  the  long  narrow  Maeander  valley, 
and  the  central  plateau,  to  which  it  affords  the  easiest 
approach  ;  and  the  great  highway  from  the  western  coast 
to  the  Euphrates  valley  traverses  it.  The  river  Lycus 
flows  down  through  the  glen,  rising  in  a  series  of  vast 
springs  at  its  upper  eastern  end.  The  largest  set  of 
springs  forms  a  lake  now  called  Kodja  Bash  (Big  Head,  or 
Source).  According  to  popular  belief,  this  lake  is  a  diiden 
{Kard^oOpov),  a  term  which  denotes  a  place  where  a  river 
either  rises  out  of  or  disappears  into  the  ground.  Such 
dudens  are  numerous  in  Asia  Minor.* 

East  of  the  Colossian  glen,  on  the  upper  plateau,  is 
the  salt  lake  Anava.  Popular  belief  sees  in  the  Lycus 
springs  the  outlet  of  this  lake ;  and  the  Lycus  water, 
though  not  salt,  is  bad  in  taste  and  not  drinkable.     Similar 

*  The  Maeander,  the  Sangarios,  and  many  other  rivers  rise  in 
dudens^  forming  small  lakes  like  Kodja  Bash. 


KrORARA 

OR 

HYDRELA 


R."   L  V  C  OCa] 


HIERAPOLIS 

^ 

*-&0     . 

rCRJJK    TCHAMLI 

-'■  sali\agh«  TCH 

FLIK 

■^ 

MAP  OF  THE 

LYCUS    VALLEY 


XIX.    The  Miracle  of  Khonai.  473 

connections  between  rivers  and  high  lakes  behind  their 
sources  are  often  traced  in  Asia  Minor,  the  typical  example 
being  between  the  Masandcr  and  the  lake  of  Bunarbashi, 
the  ancient  Aurocreni  Pontes.  Such  dudcns  are  commonly 
found  where  a  ridge  separates  two  plains  at  different  levels. 
At  the  western  end  of  the  Colossian  glen  the  Lycus  has 
a  good  opportunity  for  another  duden,  for  a  ridge  separates 
the  glen  from  a  plain  three  hundred  feet  lower  ;  but  the 
Lycus  traverses  the  ridge  by  a  narrow  open  gorge  in  place 
of  a  duden.  Now  Herodotus  says  that  the  Lycus  at 
Colossae  enters  a  rift  in  the  earth  within  the  very  city, 
and  reappears  at  a  distance  of  five  stadia.  Colossae  was 
situated  on  the  south  bank  of  the  river,  but  the  buildings 
extended  to  the  north  bank  ;  and  a  glance  at  the  map 
shows  that  the  Lycus  enters  a  rift  in  the  ridge  within 
the  circuit  once  inhabited.  The  question  then  arises,  did 
Herodotus  describe  rather  inaccurately  the  scenery  as  it 
at  present  exists,  or  has  any  catastrophe  occurred  to 
change  a  former  auden  into  an  open  gorge  ?  It  must 
be  granted  that  the  phenomena  of  the  legend  are  strongly 
suggestive  of  such  a  catastrophe :  the  noise  like  an  earth- 
quake, the  inundation  caused  by  the  blocking  of  the 
passage,  and  the  subsidence  of  the  water  when  the  gorge 
was  cleared,  would  all  be  explained  by  Hamilton's  sup- 
position, that  the  two  cliffs  of  the  gorge  were  once 
connected  over  the  stream,  and  that  the  crust  was  sub- 
sequently broken  by  an  earthquake.  The  breaking  of 
the  crust  would  necessarily  block  the  stream  till  the 
accumulated  waters  carried  away  the  fallen  dt^bris.  If 
such  an  event  took  place  it  must  have  been  after  the 
time  of  Strabo  and  Pliny,  otherwise  they  would  have 
mentioned   such  a  remarkable   phenomenon   in    alluding 


474        ^^  Church  in  the  Rojitan  Empire. 

to  Colossae.  If  it  happened  at  all  then,  the  change  hap- 
pened when  a  Christian  community  existed  at  Colossae. 
These  considerations  prompt  us  to  examine  the  evidence 
more  closely,  taking  as  guides  M.  Bonnet's  excellent 
edition  of  the  Greek  text  of  the  legend  (with  his  useful 
essays  prefixed),  and  M.  Weber's  careful  description  of 
the  gorge  * 

No  clear  confirmation  of  Herodotus'  statement  has 
come  down  to  us.  The  chief  witness  is  Strabo,  who, 
unlike  Herodotus,  had  actually  seen  both  Colossae  and 
Apameia  :  "  (the  Lycus)  flowing  for  the  greater  part  of 
its  course  underground,  thereafter  appears  to  view,  and 
joins  t  the  other  rivers  (Maeander,  Cadmos,  Kapros), 
proving  at  once  the  porous  character  of  the  country  and 
its  liability  to  earthquake."  The  passage  has  frequently 
been  misunderstood  ;  the  words  cannot  be  explained  as 
a  reference  merely  to  this  duden,  for  Strabo  is  a  careful 
writer,  and  the  Lycus  has  a  course  of  considerably  more 
than  twenty  miles.  Obviously  Strabo  refers  to  the  con- 
nection of  the  Lycus  with  Lake  Anava ;  and  thus  he 
is  correct  in  saying  that  most  of  its  course  is  under- 
ground, and  that  after  its  underground  course  it  appears 
to  view,  and  flows  to  join  the  Meander.  The  description 
is  illustrated  by  Hamilton's  description  of  the  source 
near  Dere  Keui.  It  issues  from  beneath  the  rock  ;  and 
when  Hamilton  penetrated  further  up  a  cavern  or  "  deep 
chasm  in  the  rock,  .  .  .  the  sound  of  a  subterranean 
river  rushing  along  a  narrow  bed  or  tumbling  over  pre- 

*  Bonnet,  Narratio  de  Miraculo  Chonis  ^atrato,  Paris,  1890; 
Weber,  derunterird.  Lauf  des  Lykos,  in  A  then.  MMheil.,  1891, 

P-  195- 

j"  The  aorist,  avveireaev,  is  remarkable  here,  Strab.,  p.  586. 


XIX.    The  Miracle  of  Khonai.  475 

cipiccs  .  .  .  was  distinctly  heard  "  (i.,  p.  507).*  Now  it 
is  probable  that  Strabo,  who  certainly  knew  Herodotus' 
description,  would  tacitly  correct  anything  in  it  which 
he  disapproved  of;  and  when  he  says  so  emphatically 
that  the  river  runs  underground  for  many  miles,  and~ 
then  emerges  to  view  and  joins  the  Maeander,  he  must 
be  interpreted  as  expressing  dissent  from  Herodotus. 

No  other  passage  known  to  me  seems  to  possess  any 
value  as  independent  evidence  about  the  localities ;  and 
especially  the  words  of  Scylitzes  are  obviously  a  mere 
report  of  the  legend,  connecting  it  with  the  derivation 
of  the  name  Khonai. 

Such  is  the  ancient  evidence — scanty  and  inconclusive. 
We  are  brought  face  to  face  with  the  old  question  as  to 
Herodotus'  credibility.  Can  we  accept  his  evidence  un- 
supported, even  supposing  that  it  were  not  contradicted 
by  Strabo?  Is  his  statement  of  that  strikingly  accurate 
and  vivid  character,  which  in  many  cases  leads  us  to 
accept  a  description  even  against  other  witnesses? 

We  turn,  then,  to  the  archiEological  or  topographical 
evidence.  Here  scientific  training  as  a  practical  geo- 
logist would  be  of  high  value  in  a  witness.  Hamilton 
had  training  and  practical  experience,  but  he  saw  only 
the  lower  and  upper  ends  of  the  gorge.  The  engineers 
of  the  Ottoman  Railway  traversed  and  surveyed  it 
some  years  ago,  and  I  have  talked  with  them.  M. 
Weber,  of  Smyrna,  has  printed  in  Athen.  Mittheil.,  1891, 
p.  197  ff.,  a  clear  and  accurate  account  of  the  gorge; 
but  he  did  not  extend  his  researches  over  the  whole 
territory   of  Colossae,  nor   attend   specially  to  the  points 

•  I  explained  what  I  believed  to  be  Strabo's  meaning  in  Amer. 
Jour.  Arch.,  1887,  p.  358/,  but  have  failed  to  convince  M.  Bonnet 


47^        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

raised  by  the  legend.  So  far  as  he  goes  I  agree  with 
him ;  *  but  only  a  practical  geologist  can  answer  the 
further  questions   that  arise. 

The  gorge,  as  a  whole,  has  been  an  open  gap  for 
thousands  of  years ;  on  that  all  are  agreed  who  have 
seen  it ;  and  the  grave  chambers  in  the  north  wall  of  the 
gorge  near  its  northern  end,  as  M.  Weber  acutely  argues, 
prove  this  conclusively.  This  statement,  however,  does 
not  imply  that  the  stream  was  always  open  to  view.  It 
is  still  in  some  places  half  concealed  from  view,  as  M. 
Weber  says ;  and  we  must  admit  the  possibility  that 
incrustation  from  the  streams  that  join  it,  both  on  north 
and  south,  may  have  at  a  former  period  completely  over- 
arched it  for  a  little  way.  But  such  a  bridge  would  not 
justify  Herodotus,  who  describes  a  duden  more  than  half 
a  mile  long.  His  description  fails  in  minute  accuracy ; 
and  we  must,  so  far  as  the  evidence  goes,  consider  his 
words  as  less  accurate  than  Strabo's,  and  due  to  mis- 
conception in  reporting  an  account  given  him  by  an 
eye-witness,  f 

The  character  of  the  localities  shows  that  an  inundation 
might  readily  occur  at  Colossae  ;  though  we  must  abandon 
the  theory  that  it  was  caused  by  the  collapse  of  Herodotus' 


*  I  cannot,  however,  accept  his  statement,  p.  197,  "  sein  Lauf  hal 
sick  nie  gedndert,  wie  es  Hamilton  annimmt."  Hamilton  is  quite 
right ;  M.  Weber  has  not  observed  quite  carefully. 

t  An  idea,  more  favourable  to  Herodotus,  occurred  to  me  in  1891 
{Athencsum,  August,  p.  22^);  but  I  have  been  forced  by  M.  Weber's 
clear  argument  to  abandon  it.  Sacrifice  of  this  idea  spoils  the  view 
with  which  I  planned  this  chapter  ;  and  brings  me  back  to  the  con- 
clusion I  stated  in  A?ner.  your.  Arch.,  1887,  p.  358,  that  Herodotus 
confused  the  duden  at  the  source  of  the  Lycus  with  the  gorge  at 
Colossae.     Vast  incrustations  are  made  by  these  streams. 


XIX.    The  Miracle  of  Khonai.  477 

duden.  Deliverance  from  such  an  inundation  would  in- 
evitably be  construed  as  a  miracle  by  the  inhabitants.  In 
the  Pagan  time  they  would  have  attributed  their  safety 
to  the  Zeus  of  Colossze  ;  in  the  later  Christian  period 
they  attributed  it  to  one  of  the  angels — a  proof  how 
little  removed  was  the  later  Christianity  of  Colossae  from 
the  old  paganism.  The  worship  of  angels  was  strong  in 
Phrygia.  Paul  warned  the  Colossians  against  it  in  the 
first  century.  The  Council  held  at  Laodiceia  on  the  Lycus, 
about  A.D.  363,  stigmatised  it  as  idolatrous.*  Theodoret, 
about  420-50  A.D.,  mentions  that  this  disease  long  con- 
tinued to  infect  Phrygia  and  Pisidia.f  But  that  which  was 
once  counted  idolatry,  was  afterwards  reckoned  as  piety. 

Michael,  the  leader  of  the  host  of  angels,  was  worshipped 
very  widely  in  Asia  Minor.  Akroinos-NikopoHs,  the  scene 
of  the  great  victory  over  the  Saracens  in  739,  was  dedicated 
to  him  ;  and  his  worship  is  implied  in  an  inscription  at 
Gordium-Eudokias  in  Galatia.J  A  church  of  Michael  was 
built  by  Constantine  on  the  north  coast  of  the  Bosphorus  ;  § 
and  here  Michael  was  believed  to  manifest  himself,  and 
miraculous  cures  were  toSozomen'sown  knowledge  wrought. 
The  origin  of  Christianity  at  Isaura,  in  the  legend  of  Conon, 

•  Coloss.  ii.  18,  eV  dprja-Ktia  tS>v  dyytXav;  Concil.  Laod.,  ov  Sfi 
■)(piaTiavovs  fyKarakenreiv  t^p  fKKKrjaiav  rov  deov  Koi  dyyfXovs  ovofid^eiv 
KOI  (Tvya^di  ttok'ip,  anep  dnayopfvfTai.  ei  ris  ovv  €vpf6fj  tuvtt]  rfj  KfKpvppfUtj 
(iduiXoKaTpeia  crxoXu^cov,  ecrro)  dvddepa,  on  .  .  .  eiScoXoXurpfta  TrpocrrfKdtv, 
Canon  35. 

t  fpfive  6e  ToiiTO  to  nd6os  Iv  rfj  ^pvyla  Ka\  niaibia  p^XP^  ttoXXov  .  .  .  koL 
pfXP*-  ^*  ^°*^  "^^  <i'<i"'jpiu  Toil  aylov  MixarjX  Trap"  tKeiuots  Koi  To'is  opopois 
(Kfivciv  tariv  I8f'iv  Interpret.  Ep.  Coloss.  ii.  16  (Ed.  Hal.,  iii.,  490). 

X  Athen.  Mitthcil.,  1883,  p.  144;  Bull.  Cor.  Hell.,  1883,  p.  21 
(read  [rJoJ  'Apxia-rpaTTjya  f[avT6v  ?]  napaSovs  (vddde  ^[frTat?]  2a)7-i7pi;^or). 

§  It  replaced  the  temple  of  Zeus,  erected  by  the  Argonauts,  35  st. 
from  Constantinople  ;  Sozomen,  ii.,  3;  Cedrenus,  ii.,  p.  210. 


478        The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

is  ascribed  to  the  action  of  Michael  ;  and  his  intervention  is 
considered  by  M.  Batiffol  a  reason  for  assigning  to  the 
"  Prayer  of  Aseneth  "  an  origin  in  this  region  {Stud.  Patrist.^ 

i.,  34). 

As  to  the  legend,  we  cannot  date  it  in  its  extant  form 
before  the  ninth  century.  This  is  proved  by  the  local 
names  employed.  Colossae  was  a  city  of  the  plain,  exposed 
to  sudden  attack  ;  though,  if  carefully  fortified  and  well 
guarded,  it  was  easily  defensible  against  a  regular  siege. 
In  the  Sassanian  and  Saracen  inroads  sudden  assaults,  and 
not  formal  sieges,  were  the  danger  ;  and  fortresses  on  peaks 
of  extraordinary  natural  strength,  safe  against  raids,  though 
difficult  to  provision  for  a  long  siege,  suited  the  period. 
Khonai  was  then  built  on  a  steep  spur  of  Mount  Cadmos. 
The  castle  must  be  near  3,000  feet  above  the  sea,  and  the 
village  is  situated  on  a  lower  shelf,  overlooking  the  rich 
little  glen,  and  commanding  a  beautiful  view  of  the  Lycus 
valley.  It  was  founded  probably  by  Justinian,  as  part  of 
his  general  defensive  scheme  of  roads  and  forts ;  but 
Colossae,  in  its  convenient  position,  long  continued  to  be  the 
centre  of  population.  But,  after  the  Arab  invasions  became 
a  constant  dread,  the  population  sought  the  safer  site  ;  and 
in  787  the  bishop  resided  at  Khonai,  though  bearing  the 
title  of  Colossse,  since  the  church  on  the  north  bank  of  the 
Lycus  at  Colossae  continued  to  be  the  great  sanctuary  of 
the  district.  But  in  868  and  later  the  bishop  bore  the  title 
of  Khonai,  the  name  Colossae  had  disappeared,  and  the 
whole  territory,  once  called  Colossae,  was  now  termed 
Khonai.  The  great  church  by  the  Lycus  still  existed,  till 
it  was  burned  by  the  Turks  on  a  raid  in  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury ;  but  it  was  now  known  as  the  church  of  Michael  of 
Khonai.     Now  in  the  miracle-legend  the  church  and  the 


XIX.    The  Miracle  of  Khonai.  479 

whole  glen  bear  the  name  of  Khonai ;  and  it  therefore 
cannot  be  earlier  than  the  ninth  century  in  the  present 
form.* 

That  the  legend  relates  to  the  church  at  Colossae,  and 
not  to  a  church  on  the  actual  site  of  Khonai,  seems  indubit- 
able. No  one  after  reading  the  legend,  and  looking  at  the 
remains  of  the  large  and  splendid  church  (whose  walls 
barely  projected  above  the  soil  in  1881),  can  doubt  that  the 
tale  is  the  foundation  legend  of  the  church.  But  so  utterly 
was  the  name  Colossae  lost,  that  the  redactor,  through  the 
confusion  described,  calls  the  site  Khairetopa. 

The  words  quoted  above  from  Theodoret  prove  that  there 
was  only  a  chapel  of  Michael  at  Colossae,  about  A.D.  450.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  church  at  Colossce  must  have  been 
built  before  the  centre  of  population  was  moved  to  Khonai, 
about  7CX).  t  The  legend,  then,  had  several  centuries  to 
grow  before  the  redactor  put  it  into  the  extant  form  ;  but 
he  evidently  had  an  older  form  to  work  on,  a  genuine  local 
legend,  free  from  the  topographical  confusion  of  Keretapa 
and  Khonai. 

We  have  then  failed  to  find  evidence  to  show  with 
certainty  which  of  the  three  classes  enumerated  above  the 
legend  of  Colossae  belongs  to.  It  may  arise  from  a  real 
fact  of  history,  an  inundation   that  occurred  in  Christian 

•  A  similar  date  may  be  inferred  from  the  form  Khairetopa,  which 
is  found  in  787  and  879  ;  but  in  earlier  times  the  name,  though  cor- 
ruptly spelt,  has  not  lost  the  memory  of  a  in  the  penult  (which  was 
probably  long).  This  test  admits  an  eighth  century  date,  but  is  in- 
consistent with  the  seventh  century,  the  date  favoured  byM.  Bonnet 
and  by  M.  Batiffol,  Stud.  Patrist.,  i.,  33. 

t  No  reference  to  the  miracle  or  the  church  of  Khonai  occurs 
before  the  ninth  century,  Bonnet,  p.  xxxix.,  Act,  Sand.,  September, 
vol.  viii.,  p  40,  §  198. 


480        Tlie  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire, 

times,  or  it  may  be  an  artificial  legend,  founded  on  the 
strange  natural  cleft  through  which  the  Lycus  flows,  and 
probably  giving  in  Christian  form  an  older  pagan  myth. 

Note  i. — A  remarkable  example  of  the  worship  of  angels  is  con- 
tained in  an  inscription  of  Miletos.  In  this  strange  instance  of 
superstition,  inscribed  (necessarily  by  public  permission)  on  the  wall 
of  the  theatre,  the  seven  archangels  who  preside  over  the  seven 
planets  are  invoked  to  protect  the  city.  The  names  of  the  arch- 
angels are  not  given,  but  each  planet  is  denoted  by  mysterious 
symbols,  with  the  same  inscription  beneath,  ayu,  ^vkc^ ^ov  rr]V!:Skiv 
Mi\T](ria>v  K.T.X.  Underneath  the  seven  inscriptions  is  the  single  line 
dpxavye\otl^s^  (f>vXd(X(TfTai  t)  TroXty  Mi\i](Ticov  /c.r.X-  C.  I.  G.,  2895.  The 
words  quoted  from  Theodoret  illustrate  this  curious  piece  of  super- 
stition, oi  §€  dpx^ayyfXoi  Tas  tSdv  iOvSiv  TTpocrTaalas  evemareiidria-av,  inter  p. 
tn  Dan.  c.  x. 

Note  2. — The  length  to  which  this  work  has  already  been  carried 
prevents  me  from  saying  more  about  the  Jews  in  Asia  Minor ;  but 
one  point  must  be  alluded  to  (p.  46«.).  M.  Salomon  Reinach  has 
inferred  from  a  Smyrnaean  inscription  that  the  archisynagogot 
(women  as  well  as  men)  in  Asia  Minor  were  not  officials,  but  merely 
persons  of  rank  in  the  comn>unity,  who  exercised,  by  virtue  of  their 
social  weight,  a  certain  influence  on  the  religious  practices.  Codex 
BezcB  confirms  his  acute  conclusions.  The  inscription  which  he 
comments  on  must  be  probably  older  than  A.D.  70  (p.  349). 

Note  3. — The  British  Museum  inscription,  No.  482,  "begins  by 
complaining  that  the  Ephesian  Goddess  was  now  being  set  at 
nought,"  about  A.D.  161.  This  document  would  appear  to  have 
an  important  bearing  on  Chap.  XIV.,  §  3  ;  but  I  have  tried  to  show 
in  Classical  Review,  January  1893,  that  the  text  is  wrongly  restored, 
and  that  the  meaning  is  different. 

Note  4. — It  resulted  from  the  requiring  of  a  specific  accuser,  and 
still  more  from  the  rewards  given  to  the  accuser  out  of  the  property 
of  the  accused  (p.  336),  that  a  class  of  lawyers  arose,  who  made  a 
speciality  of  cases  against  Christians.  Just  as  delatores  in  charges 
of  treason  arose  in  numbers  from  the  policy  of  Tiberius  and 
Domitian,  so  delatores  in  Christian  cases  necessarily  sprang  from 
the  circumstances  of  the  second  and  third  centuries.  Allusions  to 
such  advocati  often  occur  (Le  Blant,  Actes,  p.  306). 


INDEX. 


Achaia  I49«,  I57« 

Acilius  Glabrio  261,  271 

Acta  of  Martyrs,  character  of  i2gn,  328,  330,  337,  339,  374,  404,  422, 

424,  434«,  439,  463,  471-2 
Acfa  of  Paul  and  Thekla,  of  Carpos,  etc. :  v.  Thekla,  Carpos,  etc. 
Acts,  distinction  of  authorship  in  7,  148,  166;  alleged  incompleteness  of 

narrative  in  87« :  see  Paul^  Codex  Beza,  Travel-Document 
Actum  407 
Adada  20,  57 

Advocati,  professional,  in  Christian  cases  480 
iEschylus  3I3« 

Agapae,  discontinuance  of  206,  215,  219,  358» 
Agathonike  395,  399,  433/:  see  also  Carpos 
Alexander  Galatarch  or  Syriarch  ^77,  395-8,  402,  406,  411,  413 
Amastris  82,  83,  84 
Amisos  10,  84«,  211,  225,  285 
Ammianus  38«,  403^ 
Amphilochius  445,  447 
Anaitis  125,  138 
Anazarbos  I57» 
Ancyra  82,  99,  108 
Ancyranura  monumentum  387 
Angels,  worship  of  477,  4S0;  of  churches  368,  369» 
Antioch  of  Pisidia  19,  25-9,  35,  50,  66,  70,  81,  93,  102,  131,  148,  377,  389, 

395-413.  417,  422,  425 ;  of  Syria  10,  60,  72,  74,  91,  127,  381,  390 
Antipas  297 

Antoninus  Pius,  policy  of  331-4,  337,  353 
Antonius  Triumvir  41,  387,  427 
Apameia  44,  93 
Aphrodisias  123 

Apocalypse  188,  245,  287,  295-301,  306,  3 1 5,  318,  341,  368,  369» 
Apollo-Lairbenos  137 
Apollonia  81,  109 
Apollonius  152 

48.  31 


482  Index. 

Apollos  152 

Apologists  340-5,  430,  432 :  see  also  Aristides,  Tatmn,  etc 

Aquila  158 

Aquilius :  see  Acilius 

Archisynagogoi  45,  68,  480 

Archives,  proconsular  330 

Argaeus,  Mount  36^ 

Aristides,  apology  of  329,  341  ;  iElius  264,  352 

Arnold  228,  230«,  234^,  238 

Artemis,  Great  135;  Leto  137;  Queen  136;  Pergsean  138;  Virgin  of 

the  Lakes  466;  her  Shrines  121,  123,  134;  her  Statuettes  122,  134; 

inscription  about,  falsely  interpreted  480 
Asceticism  416 

Asia  Minor,  social  condition  of  11-13,  317,  398,  443,444:  see  also  Women 
Asia,  Province  43,  no,  149,  I57«,  166,  187,  287,  295,  312,  330,  332,  416/ 
Asiarchs  116,  131 
Athenagoras  250,  321,  336 
Athens  56,  85,  160 
Attalia  19 
Aube  320/,  358 

Avircius  Marcellus  36,  430«,  436-41 
Axylon  146 
Ayasma  50,  469» 
Ayo  Paolo  18 

Babelon,  M.  56^,  I57» 

Babylon  287 

Bacchanalia  373« 

Barnabas  16,  36,  97,  420;  Epistle  of  307-9 

Basil  of  Caesareia  445,  448-64  ;  of  Seleuceia  381,  390,  393* 

Batiffol  P.  469«,  478,  479^ 

Baucis  and  Philemon  58,  398 

Bauer  228 

Baur  186 

Bavlo  20-23 

Bears  in  Asia  Minor  405 

Bernays  253,  353« 

Beroea  85,  I54«,  160,  163 

Bishops  361-74,  428-32,  435 

Bithynia  75,  82,  83,  no,  144,  146,  149,  I57«,  187,  198-225,  286,  289 

Bonnet,  M.  474,  479« 

Brigandage  24,  373 

Cadmos,  Mount  478 

Csesarea  of  Cappadocia  10,  432,  461,  464 


Index.  483 


Cagnat,  Professor  343^ 

Caligula  373,  387,  427 

Callistus  177 

Cappadocia  10,  15,  no,  141,  187,  445-64 

Carpos,  Papylos,  and  Agathonike,  Acta  of  202,  249,  379,  39i«,  395, 
399«.  433.  434«,  435 

Castelius  377.  39i.  392,  428 

Catholic  Church,  over-centralization  in  445  ;  in  Phrygia  439-42,  463  ; 
in  Cappadocia  446-62 ;  later  history,  ch.  xviii,  xix :  see  also 
Church,  Christianity,  Bishop 

Catullus  374,  398 

Celsus  249,  336,  363 

Celtic  language  in  Galatia  82»,  99 

Christ  of  Smyrna  466 

Christian  attitude  in  prayer  421 ;  communities,  property  of  429-31 ; 
martyrs  sent  to  Rome  for  execution  317  ;  their  numbers  220,  241, 
328,  333,  339,  373;  spared  by  beasts  312,  404-6;  women  martyrs, 
outrages  on  399«  ;  name  212,  223,  242,  245,  247,  259,  281,  323,  333, 
336.  344/;  vvomen  tried  privately  348«,  393  ;  writers  as  historical 
witnesses  176-85,  278 

Christianity,  in  court  and  camp  57,  343«,  435  ;  in  Asia  suppressed 
the  native  character  44,  443-66;  attitude  of  educated  classes 
towards,  see  Edi/cated;  spread  of  57,  146,  284;  connected  with 
lines  of  communication  9,  225,  285  ;  political  side  of  10,  177,  192, 
360,  445  ;  local  and  ideal  centres  of  288,  364,  438 ;  its  relation  to 
pl;ilosophy  272,  335  ;  opposed  to  Greek  ideas  of  social  life  335  ; 
its  cosmopolitan  doctrine  345,  360 ;  its  attitude  towards  education 
345.  360  ;  its  attitude  towards  women  345,  360  (see  Women,  Church) ; 
at  first  received  favourably  130,  346;  aggressiveness  of  12,  239, 
246,  314/  357,  374,  432  ;  cause  of  family  divisions  236,  246,  281, 
347>  352  ;  disturbing  society  and  trade  130,  200,  239,  246,  326,  347  ; 
causes  of  persecution  of  346-60  ;  involved  dangerous  principle  358 ; 
a  religio  illicita,  but  not  punished  on  that  ground  193,  250/  255, 
347,  373;  no  law  against  210 

Christians,  their  behaviour  in  society  130,  239,  246  ;  characterised  by 
indolence  274,  436;  their  conduct  in  Roman  courts  199,  357,  374; 
treated  as  brigands  and  outlaws  208,  223,  269,  275,  327,  333,  338, 
342  ;  charged  \\\\.\\Jlagitia  zo^,  237,289,  340;  charged  as  magicians 
236,392,  410;  searching  out  of  212,  290,  333,  336;  professional 
advocates  in  cases  against  480;  secret  239,  274,  436;  swore  by 
safety  of  Emperor  323^;  their  power  325,  330,  353«,  436;  pro- 
tected by  their  power  325  ;  acted  as  senators  and  soldiers  435 
hatred  of  235,  326,  346 ;  how  far  regarded  as  Jewish  sect  194,  266-8 

Chryses  469,  471 


484  Index. 

Chrysorrhoas  471 

Chrysostom,  homily  on  St.  Thekia  attributed  to  393,  4io«,  424« 

Church,  organization  of  the  361-74,  428-32  ;  its  attitude  towards  women 

162,  375,  459;  see  also  Catholic,  Orthodox,  Women 
Church  history,  its  connection  with  political  history  172-6,  185-9,  190-92 
Cicero  37,  4o6«,  451 
Cilicia  63,  108,  no,  149,  I57« 
Cilician  Gates  10,  74,  85,  91/  io8»,  3l8» 
Cincius  Severus  323« 
Claudiconium  45»,  56  :  see  Iconium 
Claudio-Derbe  55  :  see  Derbe 
Claudius  231,  373«,  387,  393,  414,  427 
Clement  229,  283,  284,  287,  309-11,  319,  365,  368,  yjon 
Codex  BezcB  36,  52-4,  87,  94,  I28«,  140,  151-63,  167,  418 
Cognitiones  207,  214^,  215-17,  398/ 
Collegia  215,  359,  43032,  43^ 
Colossae  93,  466-80 

Comama  32  ;  Comana  in  Cappadocia  33 
Commentarienses  330 
Comnenus,  John  463  ;  Manuel  94 
Conjoint  Emperors  249,  333,  336^ 
Consilium  217,  223,  426 
Constantinople  99 

Conybeare  and  Howson  4,  12,  16,  28,  36,  56,  57,  61 «,  81 
Corinth  10,  56,  85,  158,  311,  3I9«,  420;  persecution  at  31 1 
Councils  363  ;  at  Iconium  38  ;  at  Laodicea  377 
Cultus  of  the  Emperors  133,  191,  250,  275,  296,  304,  323«,  324,  354.373. 

396,  398,  465/ 
Curtius,  Professor  E.  123 
Custodia  libera  or  privata  399-400 
Cybele  125 
Cynics  352 
Cyprus  io8« 
Cyzicos  387 

Dalisandos  l62« 

Dalmatia  285 

Damaris  159,  161 

Dangers  of  travel  in  Asia  Minor  23 

Deaconesses  at  Amisos  205,  220«,  225 

De  Boor,  Prof.  C.  449 

Delatores  325/,  327,  480 

Demas  377,  392,  417 

Demetrius  112  Jf 


Index.  485 

Derbe  44,  54,  56,  68,  74,  85,  103,  io8« 

Diana  Ephesia  143  :  see  also  Artemis 

Dikastai  393,  394,  411 

Dion  Cassius  260,  263-4,  268,  270,  310,  323» 

Dion  Chrysostom  43,  41 1» 

Dionysopolis  137 

Dispersion  287 

Dods,  Dr.  Marcus  291-5 

Domitian  226,  249,  256,  259-78,  302,  308,  310,  328:  see  also  Flavian 

Policy 
Dorymedon  43  5« 
Dorjiaion  76«,  84 
Doulcet,  M.  2i3» 
Druids  354 

Educated  classes,  their  attitude  towards  Christianity  133,  147,  335,  346, 

351 
Egnatian  Way  10 

Emperors,  worship  of :  see  Culttts ;  conjoint  249,  333,  336^ 
Empire,  thought  of  as  "the  World"  304,  314;  frontier  poHcy  of  41, 

385;  tolerant  spirit  of  194,  210,  268,  346;  its  reasons  for  persecuting 

Christianity  191-3,  346^;  when  it  began  to  persecute  194/  226, 

242,  251,  255 
Ephesus  10,  16,  51,  56,  91,  112-45,  147.  152/  I57»,  163,  20o«,  285,  297, 

302,  313,  318,  365,  427 
Episcopal  power,  development  of  364-74,  428-31 
Epistles  :  see  Paul,  etc. 
Eumeneia  94 
Expositor  4,  8,  36,  112,  144,  371,  430,  435/  439/  443,  471 

Falconilla  407,  420 

Farrar,  Archdeacon  4,  28,  45,  449,  456 

Felicitas,  St.  294^ 

Female  prisoners,  brutality  of  gaolers  towards  399» 

Firmilian  38,  464^ 

Flavia  Domitilla  260 

Flavian  policy  towards  the  Christians  226,  249,  252-319,  354-60,  372/ 

Flavins  Clemens  260,  271  ;  Sabinus  243 

Floriuus  330 

Fundanus,  Minucius  320,  329 

Fumeaux,  Mr.  2i6» 

Gaius  of  Derbe  98 


486  Index. 

Galatia  9,  13,  no,  149,  163,  187,  285,  396,  411 ;  change  in  extent  of  the 
province  in,  423  ;  development  of  Northern  99  ;  language  of  82«, 
97,  100 

Galatian  Churches  11,  36,  43,  51,  64,  72,  82,  91,  97-111,  154,  167;  date 
of  importance  of  104 

Galatians,  North,  a  Celtic  race  105  ;  date  of  Epistle  to  100, 167,  364,  427 

Galatic  country  77.  81,  88,  90,  95  ;  Phrygia  93,  391,  396,  398,  415 

Galaticus  14,  78«,  8o» 

Gallic  349,  364,  426 

Germa  82«,  99 

Glycerins  449-62 

Gonyklisia  436« 

Gordium  99^ 

Graeco-Roman  civilisation  in  Asia  Minor  34,  41,  317,  358/  362,  385,  396^ 

Greek  cities,  Latin  names  in  I45;i ;  language,  excellence  of  later  45 1« 

Greeks,   modern,  united   by  religion   alone  467;    their    " perversitas"' 

350 
Gregory  Nazianzen  374,  445,  447,  453.  455.  460 
Gregory  of  Nyssa  424,  445,  447,  450,  455 
Guarding  of  prisoners  400 
Gutschmid  382«,  383,  428 
Gwynn,  Dr.  376,  380,  403,  4i6»,  4I7«,  424,  425^ 


Hadrian  143,  192/.  278^,  289,  320-30,  336,  345,  353,  400,  430,  432 
Hamilton  473 

Hardy,  Mr.  20i«,  2I4«,  357 

Harnack,  Dr.  A.  5«,  283,  31 1«,  316,  399^,  434^,  437^ 
Harris,  Prof.  Rendel  88,  329^,  376«,  434,  439 
Hassan  Dagh  36« 
Hatch,  Dr.  430^ 
Headlam,  Mr.  48,  51,  i62« 
Hebrews,  Epistle  to  288,  306,  349^ 
Heracleia-Cybistra  47 1« 
Hermas  361/  368,  369,  432 
Hermogenes  377,  392,  417 
Herodotus  473-6 
Hicks,  Canon  112-45 

Hierapolis  I55«,  469,  471 ;  Hieropolis  430«,  436^ 
Hierax  of  Iconium  39 
Hilary  256^ 

Hirschfeld,  Prof.  O.  24»,  I58«,  3377* 

Historical  Geography  of  Asia  Minor  7,  8,  13,  20,  24,  26,  28/  34,  38,  42, 
47.  80/;  96,  99,  125,  138,  142,  168,  285,  455.  464,  469 


Index  48  7 

Hodceporicon  ot  St.  Willibald  I55» 
Hogarth,  Mr.  51,  55,  137,  464,  494 
Holleaux,  M.  277« 
Holtzmann  248,  286,  349^ 
Horace  176M,  325« 
Hort,  Dr.  I58«,  283» 
Hypatius  463 

Ibora  446 

Iconium  27,  36-46,  55,  67/  75,  81,  85,  99«,  103,  108,  131,  148,  163,  376, 
379.  39095.  409-".  417,  422-6,  427,  458  ;  originally  Phrygian  37-9, 
42 

Iconoclast  463,  467 

Ignatius,  letters  of  127,  i8i«,  188,  3H-19,  341,  363,  365,  369-71,404,  406, 
430,  432  ;  the  name  of  44o« 

Imperial  religion :  see  Cultus 

Indicium  202«,  233 

Inscriptions  of  British  Museum  113^,  480;  Corpus  of  Greek  14,  56,  79 
109,  123,  136,  441,  480;  Corpus  of  Latin  15,  32,  80,  430,  440;  of 
Exploration  Fund  14,  23/  32,  50,  56,  128,  12,7  ff,  142,  162,  398,  430, 
432.  435.  440,  457,  480;  various  23/  138/,  201,  227,  440/" 

Isauria  I57«,  i62«,  390,  423 

Isis  worship  373« 

James  247,  349 

Jerome  374,  404,  414 

Jerusalem  74,   355,  438;  influence  of  its  destruction  on   Christianity 

287/  364  ;  New  437 
Jews  in  Asia  Minor  18,  45/  68,  131,  150,  287,  349,  354/  480;  poHcy  of 

empire  to  19,  265,  268,  349,  354/;  rights  and  powers  of  349,  355; 

their  expulsion  from  Rome  by  Claudius  231,  373^ ;  and  Christians, 

distinction  of  194,  266 ff 
John,  Gospel  of  302  ;  First  Epistle  of  302-6 
John  Mark  16,  19,  61/ 
Juliopolis  82,  191 

Jupiter  before  the  city  51 :  see  also  Zetis 
Justinian,  his  defensive  scheme  478 
Justin  Martyr  39,  320/,  333,  337,  338» 
Juvenal  175,  179,  400 

Kara  Hissar  458 

Katakekaumene  138 

Keim  320,  324,  337,  340^,  433 


488  Index. 

Keretapa  468-80 

Khairetopa  468-80 

Khatyn  Serai  48  ^ 

Khonai  468-80 

Kiepert,  Professor  19,  28,  47» 

Kilisra  49 

Kotiaion  76^ 

Kouphos  river  470 

Language  of  Galatia  82«,  97,  100 

Laodiceia  ad  Lycum  93,  142,  389,  469 

Laodiceia  Combusta  44i« 

Latin  names  in  Greek  cities  I45« 

Leake,  Colonel  36«,  48 

Le  Blant,  M.  262«,  265«,  269«,  294^,  312,  33o«,  374,  397«,  398«,  399«, 

4oi«,  402,  403«,  404«,  405«,  408,  4I3«,  418,  419,  421,  422,  425, 

432«,  434«,  435«,  436«,  480 
Leopards  406 
Leto  125,  138 

Lewin,  Mr.  4,  74«,  76«,  94« 
Licinius  Silvanus  Granianus  278* 
Lightfoot,  Bishop  5,9,  64,78,81,  82,  loi,  111,  I26«,   127,  156,  l6o«, 

171,  185,  193,  2i3«,  249«,  26i«,  262«,  274,  277«,  292,  307,  309«, 

3io«,  311,  3i5«,  318,  320,  322,  327«,  328,  33i«,  332«,  333,  336«, 

352«,  370W,  376,  379«,  395«,  440.  442« 
Lipsius,  Dr.  R.  A.  5,  3i«,  97,  99«,  320,  324,  376,  380,  382«,  401,  402«, 

404^,  4o8«,  416,  417,  421,  428,  469^ 
Localisation  of  Divine  power  466 
Lollius  Urbicus  327,  334 
Loyalty  of  Asian  provinces  42 
Lucian's  familiarity  with  Christian  procedure  366 
Lugdunensian  martyrs  204,  219,  240,  337,  379,  401 
Lycaonia  37,  41,  56-8,  95,  io6,  108,  no,  ill,  I57«,  164,  390,  423,  427 
Lycaonians,  character  Oriental  57,  106,  161 ;  Koinon  15,  39;  language  57 
Lycia  no,  149,  46S,  471 
Lycus  valley,  topography  of  468^ 
Lystra  33,  35,  44.  46,  56,  68,  74,  loi,  103,  131,  144,  163,  390,  409,  41 1« 

Macedonia  149»,  151,  156 ;  subdivisions  of  I58»,  l6o 
Magistrates  in  provincial  cities  45,  67,  70 
Magnesia  on  the  Mseander  200,  326,  365 
Mandata  Imperatorum  208,  211,  214,  334,  338/ 
Marciana,  African  martyr  404/,  413 


Index.  489 

Marcion  100 

Marcus  Aurelius,  policy  of  334-40,  342,  351 

Manccus  404^ 

Martial  179,  318 

Martyr,  the  name  251,  281,  296 

Martyrs,  nude  377  ;  fastened  to  a  stake  413;  spared  by  beasts  377,404; 

inscriptions  placed  beside  401 ;  see  also  Christian 
Mealitis  tribe  at  Sillyon,  meaning  of  the  name  139 
Meetings  for  religious  purposes  legal  219 
Melito  320,  33 1«,  336,  338 
Mfin  191 
Methodius  424 
Metropolis  of  Ionia  442^ 
Michael  at  Colossae  or  Khonai  468-80,  other  seats  of  his  worship  468, 

477 
Migratory  habit  in  Asia  Minor  17 
Miletos  155,  480 
Minucius  Felix  333 
Monimsen,  Prof.  Th.  8«,  12,  32«,  I27«,  \^(>n,  186,  188,  192,  194,  208, 

2i6«,  224,  226«,  256,  269/  293«,  295,  318,  322,  332«,  343«,  354«, 

373  «■  383.  386«,  387/?,  432«,  444« 
Monks  in  Phrygia  463  ;  in  Cappadocia  449-59,  461-63 
Montanism  416,  433-42 
Mutterrecht:  see  Women 
Myra  155,  379,  4io«,  417-19 
Mysia  75,  82,  no,  160 


Nakoleia  76» 

Name :  see  Christian 

Naoi  123-8 

Naokoros  154 

Naophoroi  128 

Neil,  Mr.  I52« 

Neopoioi  114,  119,  122 

Nero  226-51,  276,   278«,  282,  301,   307,  346,  348,  349,  388,  392,  414; 

date  of  his  return  to  Kome  from  Greece  244,  277  ;  expected  return 

of  308 
Nerva  310 

Neubauer,  Dr.  A.  68« 
Neumann,  Prof.  K.  J.  181,  194,  195,  202,  203,  213,  2I9«,  226,  26o»,  266, 

297«,  302«,  33i«,  338,  339,  353«,  399^ 
Nicaea  83,  I57« 
Nicetas  of  Paphlagonia  375 


490  Index. 

Nicomedeia  83,  99,  I57«,  ii^n  ;  case  of  the  firemen  at  2IS«,  358 

Niobe  I24« 

Nisibis  438 

Nomadic  habit  in  Asia  Minor  17 

Nomophylakes  114 

Nomothetae  114 

Novatians  in  inscription  441 » 


Officium  330 

Olba  427 

Onesiphorus  376,  390,  409,  417 

Origen  283,  336^ 

Orthodox  Church  465-7  ;  unifying  the  Greek  race  467 

Overbeck  I95«,  320,  324,  33i« 


Pamphylia  16,  61,  io8«,  no,  138,  149 

Papadopoulos  Kerameus  439 

Paphos  61 

Papylos :  see  Carpos 

Patara  I55» 

Paul  3-168,  245,  246-51,  282,  284,  286,  302,  349/  364/  426;  infirmity 
of  62-74,  86  ;  personal  appearance  of  32 ;  a  tentmaker  1 59 ;  Roman 
ideas  56,  58,  60,  70,  94;?,  148,  158^  (see  Travel  Document) ;  develop- 
ment of  his  views  364/;  426 ;  chronology  of  his  life  100/,  166,  426 ; 
persecution  of  131,  246-50,  349^,  350;  visits  to  Jerusalem  100 f, 
107,  166;  first  journey  16-73,  364.  420;  second  journey  74-89,  420; 
third  journey  90-96,  418^;  at  Ephesus  112-45;  pastoral  epistles 
103,  246-50,  288,  365,  368,  380,  417  ;  Epistle  to  Thessalonians  85, 
loi,  347,  364,  426;  Galatians  9/",  43,  59/",  64/;  91,  97-1  n,  285, 
347,  364,  420,  426/;  Corinthians  64/  loi,  103,  106,  149,  347,  364, 
420;  Romans  loi,  286,  288,  347,  364;  Ephesians  286 ;  Colossians 
148,  469,  477  ;  see  also  Thekla\  Paul  of  Samosata  43 1» 

Paulicianism  467 

Pepouza  437 

Perga  16,  61 :  see  also  Artemis 

Pergamos  150,  I57«,  297 

"  Perils  of  Rivers  " — "  of  Robbers  "  23 

Perpetua,  Acta  of  434 

Perrot,  M.  lii« 

Persecution  of  Christianity,  administrative  not  legal  207 ;  early  forms  of 
200,  250/^  347,  349,  372,  392_/';  ineffectiveness  of,  325,  373;  causes 
of,  346-60 ;  social  294 :  see  also  Christianity 


Index.  491 

Pessinus  82,  99,  108,  459« 

Peter,  First  Epistle  of  no,  187,  2i3«,  245,  279-94,  302,  348,  365,  368; 

Second  Epistle  of  288,  432« 
Pfleiderer,  Dr.  187-89 
Phargamous  457 
Philadelphia  10,  93,  3i8«,  370» 
Philemon  :  see  Baucis 
Philip  the  Asiarch  442» 

Philippi  10,  56,  85,  103,  131,  156,  160,  186,  200»,  250 
Philomelium  28,  430 

Philosophy,  its  relation  to  Christianity  272,  335  :  see  Educated 
Philostratus  384^ 
Phrygia  37,  42,  58,  ^6,  91,  106,  no,  146,  149,  160,  446:  see  also  Angels, 

Galaiic,  Montanism 
Phrygian,  a  title  of  disgrace  27,  42  ;  cities,  Greek  origin  of  42« 
Pionius,  Acta  of  393« 
Pisidia  18,  50,  72,  no 
Pisidian  colonies  30-35,  70 
Pliny  146,  181,  187,  196-225,  226,  228,  240,  259,  266,  267,  275,  278«, 

289,  302«,  435«  ;    character  of  217,  221,  350,  357  ;  fundamental 

importance  of  his  letter  to  Trajan  195  ;  see  also  Trajan 
Pliny,  the  Elder  37 

Polemon,  King  382-9,  427  ;  Sophist  384;/,  389 
Polycarp  330/  369«,  374,  398^,  399^,  430,  433/,  442^ 
Pomponia  Graecina  348^ 
Pontus  \on,  81,   no,   149,   187,  198-225,  285;  date  when  Christianity 

reached  225,  285 
Presbyters  367-74 
Priests,  attitude  of,  towards  Christianity  58,  131,  l44;of  Artemis  120; 

named  and  dressed  as  their  god  459 
Ptolemaeus,  prosecution  of  327,  334 
Pudens,  action  of  334 
Pygela  i55» 


Quadratus'  Apology  328-9 


Religion,  ancient,  its  character  130-34,  144,  191,  209,  360;  localisation 

of  466;  meetings  for,  legal  219;  Imperial:  see  Culttis 
Renan  19,  win 

Robinson,  Mr.  Armitage  52,  i6i« 

Roman  organisation  in  provinces  41^,  358/;  362:  see  Graco-Roman 
Royal  Road  i\ff 


492  Inaex. 

Sacrilege  260^,  396-401 

Saint,  giving  name  to  city,  20 

Saints :  see  Ada 

Salmon,  Dr.  45«,  38o«,  4i6» 

Samos  155 

Saracen  inroads,  character  of  478 

Sardis  125 

Sasima  426 

Scaliger  379 

Sceva  153 

Schlau  380,  428 

Schiirer,  Dr.  E.  9«,  13 

Seleuceia  of  Isauria  379,  426,  466;  of  Syria  60,  3i8«, 

Seljuk  Sultans  463 

Seneca  273 

Servants  of  "the  God  "  397,  407 

Seven  Churches,  letters  to  300,  368,  369» 

Severus,  Septimius  194,  219,  317 ;  Sulpicius  243,  253,  255 

Silas  74 

Sillyon  138 

Sinethandos  441^ 

Slaves,  evidence  of  204 

Smith,  Mr.  Cecil  I35« 

Smyrna  I28«,  147,  150,  I57»,  297,  332,  365,  4l8«,  430,  433 

Sociari  Sanctis  martyribus  262^ 

Sodalitates  211,  213-15,  219,  358/  430-32 

Spitta  166-8,  299,  369«,  426 

Stadium  Amphitheatrum  400« 

Stadium,  trials  held  in  399 

Stephanephoros  397 

Sterrett,  Prof.  28,  47^,  48,  5o«,  54 

Strabo  19,  25,  37,  55,  76,  79,  427,  454;  and  Herodotus  474^ 

Strobolis  I55« 

Suetonius  240,  257,  258,  267,  271,  273,  276;  and  Tacitus  230 

Synnada  435;?,  436« 


Tacitus  9,  176,  183/  201/  205,  227-51,  258,  267,  276,  348«,  355,  387«, 
399«,  404« ;  proconsul  of  Asia  228 ;  conception  of  Flavian  policy 
253-6 

Tarsus  io8«,  I57« 

Tatian  345,  353,  360 

Taurus  17,  19-24 

Tavium  82,  99^ 


Index. 


493 


Tertullian  221,  283»,  321,  323-6,  327,  334«,  342,  34S«,  37 jw,  400,  404, 

414,  415,  421/ 
Tetrarchy  of  Lycaonia  41,  45,  55 
Thamyris  377,  392,  394,  410 

Thekla,  Acta  of  Paul  and  31-3,  36,  46,  66,  155,  159,  26o«,  375-428 
Theokleia  376 
Theophilus,  of  Antioch  337 
Thessalonica  56,  85,  131,  250 
Thessaly  160 
Thundering  Legion  342 
Thurston,  Rev.  H.  439^ 
Thyatira  416 

Timothy  74,  85,  98,  102,  420 

Titus  417,  420;  Emperor  254,  256,  267:  see  also  Flavian  Policy 
Toleration  of  non-Roman  religions  12,  193,  219,  268 
Trade  Route,  Eastern  28 
Traditores  326 
Trajan  195,  226,  259,  266,  278«,  289,  302,  329,  333,  337,  341,  345,  353, 

435« :  see  also  Pliny 
Tralles  I57«,  191,  33i«,  365,  398^ 
Travel-Document,  Pauline  character  of  6-8,  ^ ff,  43/,  54,  56,  60,  62-4^ 

65-  11,  78,  93.  117,  146-50,  164/ 
Trials  held  in  Stadium  399 
Tribal  jealousy  in  Asia  Minor  39 
Troas  10,  76,  85«,  89,  151 
Trogj'lia  155 

Tryphsena,  Queen  378,  382-9,  396,  400403,  406,  412-14,  427/ 
Tubingen  school  of  criticism  180 
Tyana  10 
Tychicus  154 
Tymion  437 

Ulpian  \oin 

Venasa  4,  142,  450-64 

Venationes  317,  378,  396,  398,  405-6,  413 

Vespasian  256-8,  278«,  301,  308 :  see  also  Flavian  Policy 

Vischer  298 

Velter  301,  302» 

Waddington,  M.  8«,  109,  142,  175,  332«,  383,  385,  44l» 

Weber,  M.  474-6 

Weiss,  comm.  on  i  Peter  349« 


494  Index. 

Weizsacker  lli«,  307 

Wendt  5,  76«,  Tjn,  82,  106,  149,  167 

Westcott,  Bishop  303;^,  305,  443« 

Wieseler  2i3« 

Willibald,  St.  I55« 

Wilson,  Sir  Charles  48 

Women  in  Asia  Minor  67,  161,  398,  403;  in  the  early  Asian  Church  161, 

345,  360,  375,  438,  452-9;  in  Macedonia  160;  see  also  Christian, 

Christianity,  Female  Prisonefs 

Xenophon,  his  evidence  about  Phrygia  37 

Yaila  17 

Zahn  3i8«,  379,  383^,  384«,  404,  414,  4i6» 

Zeus  of  Laodiceia  142  ;  of  Lystra  51,  57/;  of  Venasa  142,  45^ 

Zeus  Larasios  191 ;  Olympius  191 


ILLUSTRATIONS   AND    MAPS. 

1  (p.  47).  View  of  Lystra,  from  a  photograph  by  Mr.  D.  G.  Hogarth, 

1890.  The  view  is  from  the  south ;  Ayasma  with  trees  in  the  fore- 
ground. 

2  (p.  55).  View  of  Derbe,  from  a  photograph  by  Mr.  Hogarth,  1890. 

The  view  is  from  the  south-west. 

3  (p.  441).  Gravestone,  in  possession  of  a  Turk,  native  of  Seulun,  drawn 

by  Mrs.  Ramsay,  August  1884.  I  tried  vainly  to  induce  some  rich 
Armenians  of  Kara  Hissar  to  bring  the  stone  to  their  church  for 
preservation. 

4.  The  Map  of  Asia  Minor  is   intended  chiefly  to  show  the   political 

divisions  a.d.  50-70,  and,  secondarily  to  aid  the  comprehension  of 
the  history  of  Christianity  in  the  country  during  the  early  centuries. 
By  a  mistake  the  hills  bounding  the  valley  of  Lystra  on  N.E.  are 
represented  too  near  Iconium. 

5.  The  Map  of  the  Lycus  valley  depends   on   the  Ottoman  Railway 

Survey,  kindly  given  me  by  Mr.  Purser.  The  route  from  Denizli 
to  Khonai  is  added  by  me :  I  traversed  it  in  October  1891. 


By  W.  M.  RAMSAY. 

THE  CHURCH  IN  THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE 
BEFORE  A.D.  170. 

With  Maps  and  Illustrations,  8vo $3.00 

"  It  is  a  book  of  very  exceptional  value,  Prof.  Ramsay  is  a  real  scholar  and  of 
the  very  best  type  of  scholarship.      A  thoroughly  trood  book  ;  a  product  of  first- 
hand and  accurate  scholarship  ;  in  the  highest  degree  suggestive  ;  and  not  only 
valuable  in  its  results,  but  an  admirable  example  of  the  true  method  of  research. 
—  The  Churchman. 

ST.  PAUL  THE  TRAVELLER  AND  THE 
ROMAN  CITIZEN. 

With  Map,  8vo $3.00 

*'  A  work  which  marks  an  important  step  in  advance  in  the  historical  inter* 

Eretatjon  of  St.  Paul.  .  .  .  It  is  an  immense  gain  to  have  the  narrative 
fted  from  the  mean  function  of  being  an  artful  monument  and  mirror  of 
a  strife  internal  to  Christianity  which  it  seeks  by  a  process,  now  of  creation, 
now  of  elimination,  to  overcome  and  to  concealj  to  the  high  purpose  of 
representing  the  religion  as  it  began  within  the  Empire  and  as  it  actually  was  to 
the  Empire  and  the  Empire  to  it.  .  .  .  Professor  Ramsay  has  made  a  solid 
and  valuable  contribution  to  the  interpretation  of  the  Apostolic  literature  and  of 
the  Apostolic  age — a  contribution  distmguished  no  less  by  ripe  scholarship,  in- 
dependent judgment,  keen  vision,  and  easy  mastery  of  material,  than  by  fresh- 
ness of  thought,  boldness  of  combination,  and  striking  originality  of  view."— 
The  Speaker. 

IMPRESSIONS  OF  TURKEY  DURING 
TWELVE  YEARS'  WANDERINGS. 

8vo $1.75 

"  No  conception  of  the  real  status  of  Turkey  is  possible  unless  something  is 
understood  of  '  the  interlacing  and  alternation  of  the  separate  and  unblenaing 
races.'  .  .  .  Such  an  understanding  is  admirably  presented  in  Prof.  Ramsay's 
book,  which  g^ves  a  near  and  trustworthy  insight  into  actual  Turkish  conditions." 
—N.  Y.  T'mes. 

WAS  CHRIST  BORN  AT  BETHLEHEM? 

A  Study  in  the  Credibility  of  St.  Luke.     Part  I.     The  Importance  of 
the  Problem.    Part  II.    The  Solution  of  the  Problem.    8vo,  $1.75 

"  The  work  is  one  of  which  students  of  biblical  criticism  will  need  to  take  account. 
It  is  absolutely  candid  and  straightforward,  thorough  and  discriminating,  and 
courteous  to  other  scholars  whose  conclusions  it  sees  most  reason  to  condemn. 
It  is  a  fine  piece  of  work." — The  Congregationalist. 

HISTORICAL  COMMENTARY  UPON  THE 
EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIANS. 

8vo $3.00 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS,  New  York  and  London. 


Date  Due 


^     i 


r^^.&%«"-:r.r:' 


Princeton  Theologi 


„calSemmary-SpeerL;brarv 


7  1012  00015  9428^ 


